Question

conserve, don’t build
1 our water district plans to build a desalination plant. this is a bad idea. the costs and risks are too great. the plant will squash our wallets and our environment.
2 reports say this plant will cost more than $200 million to build. the cost will really raise the rates we pay for water. and the costs won’t stop there. the plant will have pumps that use as much power as thousands of homes! where will all the money go? those who build the plant will get rich.
3 the amount of gases this plant will produce is unreasonable. it will add hundreds of tons of gases into our air each year. we don’t need that.
4 this plant will harm sea life. the filters used to remove salt are so fine that only water passes through. everything else is killed. yes, fish screens can keep out fish. but they can’t save plankton and fish eggs. the whole food web will suffer because of desalination.
what does the word unreasonable mean in paragraph 3?

• not able to be measured
• easy to understand
• not based on good sense
• able to change

Explanation:

To determine the meaning of "unreasonable" in paragraph 3, we analyze the context. The paragraph says the plant will add hundreds of tons of gases to the air yearly and "we don't need that". So the gas production amount is not based on good sense (i.e., it's excessive/unjustifiable). Let's check the options: "not able to be measured" doesn't fit. "Easy to understand" is opposite. "Able to change" is irrelevant. So the correct option is the one with "not based on good sense".

Answer:

The option with "not based on good sense" (the third option among the given choices, with the text "not based on good sense").