Reading Comprehension

Technology

Medium

The Second Hand September campaign, led by Oxfam seeks to encourage shopping at local organisations and charities as alternatives to fast fashion brands such as Primark and Boohoo in the name of saving our planet. As innocent as mindless scrolling through online shops may seem, such consumers are unintentionally or perhaps even knowingly contributing to an industry that uses more energy than aviation.

Brits buy more garments than any other country in Europe, so it comes as no shock that many of those clothes end up in UK landfills each year: 300,000 tonnes of them, to be exact. This waste of clothing is destructive to our planet, releasing greenhouse gasses as clothes are burnt as well as bleeding toxins and dyes into the surrounding soil and water. As ecologist Chelsea Rochman bluntly put it, "The mismanagement of our waste has even come back to haunt us on our dinner plate."

It's not surprising, then, that people are scrambling for a solution, the most common of which is second-hand shopping. Retailers selling consigned clothing are currently expanding at a rapid rate. If everyone bought just one used item in a year, it would save 449 million lbs of waste, equivalent to the weight of 1 million Polar bears. "Thrifting" has increasingly become a trendy practice. London is home to many second-hand, or more commonly coined 'vintage', shops across the city from Bayswater to Brixton.

So you're cool and you care about the planet; you've killed two birds with one stone. But do people simply purchase a second-hand item, flash it on Instagram with vintage and call it a day without considering whether what they are doing is actually effective?

According to a study commissioned by Patagonia, for instance, older clothes shed more microfibres. These can end up in our rivers and seas after just one wash due to the worn material, thus contributing to microfibre pollution. To break it down, the amount of microfibres released by laundering 100,000 fleece jackets is equivalent to as many as 11,900 plastic grocery bags, and up to 40 per cent of that ends up in our oceans. So where does this leave second-hand consumers? They would be well advised to buy high-quality items that shed less and last longer as this combats both microfibre pollution and excess garments ending up in landfills.

Luxury brands would rather not circulate their latest season stock around the globe to be sold at a cheaper price, which is why companies like ThredUP, a US fashion resale marketplace, have not yet caught on in the UK. There will always be a market for consignment but there is also a whole generation of people who have been taught that only buying new products is the norm; second-hand luxury goods are not in their psyche. Ben Whitaker, director at Liquidation Firm B-Stock, told Prospect that unless recycling becomes cost-effective and filters into mass production, with the right technology to partner it, "high-end retailers would rather put brand before sustainability."

The central idea of the passage would be undermined if

second-hand stores sold only high-quality clothes.

clothes were not thrown and burnt in landfills

Primark and Boohoo recycled their clothes for vintage stores.

customers bought all their clothes online.

✅ Correct Option: 1

Step 1: Identify the central idea -> The passage argues that second-hand shopping is a good alternative to fast fashion for everyone to help save the planet.

Step 2: Look for what would weaken this solution -> Something that makes second-hand shopping less effective or accessible.

From passage: "If everyone bought just one used item in a year, it would save 449 million lbs of waste, equivalent to the weight of 1 million Polar bears."

The key insight -> The passage wants mass participation in second-hand shopping. The solution works best when many people can access it, not just wealthy buyers.

Let's eliminate the wrong options:

🟢 Option 2 -> supports the main idea -> If clothes weren't thrown in landfills, that would actually help the environment. This supports the passage's goals.

🟢 Option 3 -> supports the main idea -> If Primark and Boohoo recycled clothes, that would reduce waste. This also helps the environmental cause.

🟠 Option 4 -> irrelevant -> Online shopping doesn't contradict second-hand shopping. People can still buy second-hand clothes online.

🔴 Option 1 -> undermines access -> If stores only sold high-quality clothes, they'd be too expensive for most people. This would limit who can participate in second-hand shopping.

From passage: "Brits buy more garments than any other country in Europe" and the passage promotes second-hand as alternative to "Primark and Boohoo"

The logic -> Primark and Boohoo customers shop there because it's cheap -> If second-hand stores only sold expensive, high-quality items -> These customers couldn't afford them -> They'd stick with fast fashion -> The environmental solution fails.

The passage needs second-hand shopping to be accessible to everyone, not just people who can afford luxury items.

Question 9

Based on the passage, we can infer that the opposite of fast fashion, 'slow fashion', would most likely refer to clothes that:

Question 10

The act of "thrifting", as described in the passage, can be considered ironic because it:

Question 12

According to the author, companies like ThredUP have not caught on in the UK for all of the following reasons EXCEPT that:

The central idea of the passage would be undermined if

Solution

More from this set:

Keyboard Shortcuts

CAT Past Year Questions (Topic-Wise)