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Difficulty: MediumStrengthen

Economist: To mitigate extreme strain on the regional power grid during summer heatwaves, an energy authority introduced dynamic surge pricing for commercial manufacturers between 1:00 p.m. and 6:00 p.m. Over the subsequent summer, total peak-period electricity drawn from the grid by these manufacturers fell by 22 percent, while their overall production volume remained unchanged. Therefore, the surge pricing policy successfully motivated manufacturers to shift energy-intensive production activities to off-peak nighttime and morning hours.

Which of the following, if true, most strongly supports the economist's conclusion?

  1. A
    Residential consumers in the region increased their peak-period electricity consumption by roughly eight percent over the course of the same summer.
  2. B
    Several major manufacturing facilities installed on-site diesel generators at the beginning of the summer to power heavy machinery during peak pricing hours.
  3. Electricity consumption by the commercial manufacturers during late-night and early-morning hours increased by an amount roughly equal to their peak-period reduction.Answer
  4. D
    Every manufacturing facility that fails to operate during off-peak hours is eventually forced to shut down due to rising municipal utility rates.
  5. E
    The energy authority was unable to reliably measure the total volume of electricity delivered to industrial sectors during the test period.

Answer

The argument is most strongly supported by the finding that manufacturers increased their off-peak electricity consumption by an amount comparable to the reduction in peak-period usage.
The conclusion asserts a specific operational mechanism: manufacturers maintained production while lowering peak grid consumption by shifting heavy work to off-peak hours. The finding that electricity usage rose during early-morning and late-night periods in proportion to the peak-period decrease provides direct confirmation that power-intensive tasks were rescheduled to those hours.

Step-by-Step Solution

1
Analyze the stimulus argument structure
Premises: Peak-hour grid electricity draw by manufacturers dropped 22%, but total production stayed constant. Conclusion: The price surge caused manufacturers to reschedule energy-heavy processes to off-peak morning and evening hours.
Identifying premises and the conclusion isolates the logical gap between observed lower peak grid consumption and the specific claimed behavioral cause (temporal rescheduling).
2
Identify potential gaps and rival hypotheses
The manufacturers could have achieved lower grid demand without shifting hours—for example, by running on-site generators, implementing real-time peak efficiencies, or outsourcing energy-intensive steps.
To strengthen an argument with a causal claim, one must either corroborate the proposed mechanism or rule out plausible alternative explanations.
3
Evaluate the credited choice against the reasoning gap
Showing an offsetting rise in electricity consumption during early morning and late-night hours directly demonstrates that energy consumption was indeed transferred to those specific off-peak periods.
Corroborating the complementary increase in off-peak consumption directly validates the author's hypothesized mechanism.

Key Concept

Strengthening causal reasoning by verifying the predicted mechanism
Estimated Time:1m 15s
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