Logical Reasoning

PT12 · S4 · Q1 Most regular coffee is made

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Most regular coffee is made from arabica coffee beans because the great majority of consumers prefer its generally richer flavor to that of coffee made from robusta beans.

Given

Most coffee is made from arabica beans. A great majority of consumers prefer arabica's richer flavor to robusta's. However, decaf drinkers overwhelmingly prefer robusta. The flavor of robusta is not as greatly affected by decaffeination as the flavor of arabica. Decaffeination messes with various substances, most of which are flavor-neutral but one of which contributes to the richness of coffee's flavor.

Evaluate

That "however" should draw our attention. In Most Supported or Must Be True questions, a pivot word is usually setting up tension between that fact and the facts that came before. The correct answer is usually a safely-worded way of reconciling the tension.

This pivot gives us a curious fact: most coffee drinkers prefer arabica beans, but folks who switch to decaf prefer robusta beans because their flavor isn't as affected by decaffeination. We have two other claims about flavor. One tells us consumers generally prefer a richer flavor, and the other tells us that decaffeination reduces or removes one substance that contributes to the richness of coffees flavor.

Goal

Look for an answer that reconciles the tension by combing the statements about flavor. Beware answers that are too strong, bring in new ideas, or propose unsupported relationships between the ideas in the stimulus.

1.

The statements above provide the most support for which one of the following conclusions?

  1. The annual world crop of

    Out of Scope: annual world crop

    This answer is full of out of scope ideas. We don't have any information about the size of the annual world crop of arabica beans, the demand for regular coffee, or the relationship between the two.

    0% picked this

  2. Arabica beans contain more caffeine

    Out of Scope: caffeine

    As sacrilegious as this sounds, this question about coffee has nothing to do with caffeine. We already know why folks generally prefer arabica: its richer flavor. We can't infer anything about caffeine content from that.

    1% picked this

  3. Coffee drinkers who drink decaffeinated

    Unsupported Comparison

    We know there are regular robusta drinkers, and we know there are decaf robusta drinkers, but we don't know whether there is any overlap between these groups.

    7% picked this

  4. Correct

    Decaffeination of arabica beans extracts

    Why this is right

    Decaffeination only impacts one substance that contributes to flavor. And the flavor of Arabica beans is impacted more than the flavor of robusta beans. From this, it's pretty reasonable to conclude that the one flavor substance is getting hit harder in the arabica beans than the robusta beans. And if you had any doubts about picking an answer that implies that the decaffeination process could differ from bean to bean, look no further than the last sentence to resolve that qualm: "Depending on the type of bean involved..."

    Skill tested: Most Supported · how this choice captures the argument's function is the move to repeat next time.

    90% picked this

  5. There are coffee drinkers who

    Out of Scope: cost

    The stimulus says nothing about cost, nor does it allow us to infer a relationship between regular arabica drinkers and decaf arabica drinkers.

    1% picked this

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