Question

Difficulty: Very hardPassage Assumptions and Underlying Premises

Read the passage given below:

To check forest degradation and incentivize biodiversity conservation, several state governments have introduced community-managed forestry frameworks that grant rural indigenous cooperatives legal rights to sell voluntary carbon offset credits generated from avoided deforestation. Proponents assert that by linking rural livelihoods directly to global carbon market revenues, these communities will naturally abandon unsustainable timber extraction in favor of long-term conservation. However, carbon markets operate on fluctuating international demand and complex certification protocols that require high technical expertise to measure carbon sequestered. In rural districts with low administrative capacity and fluctuating credit prices, community cooperatives often incur substantial transaction costs to external intermediaries, eroding their net earnings. Consequently, when global carbon credit prices plummet, cooperatives face immediate revenue shortfalls, compelling local households to resume opportunistic tree-felling to satisfy immediate subsistence needs. Therefore, relying exclusively on market-based carbon offsets without providing baseline fiscal guarantees fails to achieve durable forest conservation.

Evaluating the underlying premises of the text above, consider the following assertion:

The author's argument that market-based carbon offsets alone cannot achieve durable forest conservation necessarily assumes that the decision of local households to engage in or abstain from tree-felling is primarily governed by immediate income stability rather than non-monetary ecological commitment.

Answer: Answer

Answer

The statement is True.
The statement accurately identifies a necessary underlying premise of the passage. The author's central claim—that market-based offsets fail because price drops force households back into tree-felling—depends entirely on the premise that financial returns dictate household conservation behavior. If household behavior were independent of monetary returns, carbon price fluctuations would not impact forest conservation outcomes.

Step-by-Step Solution

1
Deconstruct the author's main conclusion and supporting premise.
Conclusion: Relying exclusively on market-based carbon offsets fails to achieve durable conservation. Premise: When market prices fall, revenue shortfalls force rural households back into tree-felling.
Identifying the explicit logical chain is necessary before pinpointing implicit assumptions.
2
Determine the unstated premise connecting financial shortfalls to deforestation behavior.
The argument assumes that immediate household financial returns dictate whether timber extraction occurs.
Without this link, financial shortfalls would not necessarily result in tree-felling.
3
Apply the Negation Test to verify necessity.
If household decisions were NOT driven by immediate financial returns (e.g., if driven by intrinsic conservation ethics regardless of earnings), then a drop in carbon prices would not cause a resumption of tree-felling, causing the author's conclusion to collapse.
An assumption is necessary if its negation invalidates the central argument.

Key Concept

Identifying implicit necessary assumptions using the Negation Method in Reading Comprehension
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