Question

Offshore oil-drilling operations entail an unavoidable risk of an oil spill, but importing oil on tankers presently entails an even greater such risk per barrel of oil. Therefore, if we are to reduce the risk of an oil spill without curtailing our use of oil, we must invest more in offshore operations and import less oil on tankers.

Which of the following, if true, most seriously weakens the argument above.

A) Tankers can easily be redesigned so that their use entails less risk of an oil spill.
B) Oil spills caused by tankers have generally been more serious than those caused by offshore operations.
C) The impact of offshore operations on the environments can be controlled by careful management.
D) Offshore operations usually damage the ocean floor, but tankers rarely cause such damage.
E) Importing oil on tankers is currently less expensive than drilling for it offshores.

Answer 1

A) Tankers can easily be redesigned so that their use entails less risk of an oil spill.

Step-by-step explanation:

The option that if true most seriously weakens the argument above is: tankers can easily be redesigned so that their use entails less risk of an oil spill because the statement says that importing oil on tankers entails a greater risk of an oil spill than offshore oil-drilling and the option chosen directly talks about that and says that the tankers can easily be redesigned to decrease the risks of an oil spill which goes against the argument given.

The other options are not right because the options B and C support the argument given. Also, options D and E doesn't talk about oil spill which is the topic on the argument presented.