Cooling Canopy, Misplaced Objection
A city council cites a study of 40 neighborhoods: blocks with at least 30% tree canopy averaged 2.1°C cooler on summer afternoons than blocks with under 10% canopy. The study’s authors caution that the correlation did not isolate canopy from proximity to parks and building density. The council approves planting 5,000 trees, mostly in the three hottest districts. A columnist objects that the plan will fail because trees take years to mature. A test-taker is asked: The columnist’s objection is best described as (A) challenging the study’s methodology (B) questioning the plan’s timeline rather than its rationale (C) denying that canopy affects temperature (D) arguing the council mistook correlation for causation (E) proposing an alternative to tree planting. The test-taker has narrowed the choices to B and D.
1. Which choice is correct, and why is the other finalist wrong?
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B. The columnist grants the plan’s underlying logic-trees cool blocks-but says the benefit will not arrive soon enough. That is a timeline objection. D is the strongest distractor because the passage does mention correlation and confounding factors, but the columnist never makes that argument; D describes a critique the authors already made, not the columnist’s claim. A and C are too strong: no methodology is attacked, and the columnist does not deny cooling. E offers no alternative.
2. Suppose the columnist instead wrote: 'The council treated a correlation as a mandate, ignoring the authors’ caveat about parks and density.' Which choice would then be best, and what happens to B?
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D would become best: the objection would target the inference from correlation to policy, not timing. B would no longer fit because the columnist would not be discussing maturation time. This shows why the question tests function, not topic: both versions mention the same study, but they assign different roles to the objection.