LR Drill Set 10, Question 8
When making coffee in a coffeemaker, one should(60 more words not shown)
The claim that hot tap(25 more words not shown)
- AIt is a(26 more words not shown)
- BIt is a(30 more words not shown)
- CIt is presented(13 more words not shown)
- DIt is presented(16 more words not shown)
- EIt is presented(20 more words not shown)
Reading the argument
Why does it matter that the water sat in a tank?
The author recommends starting with cold water. My first question is what goes wrong with hot water: does sitting in the heater affect the coffee somehow? The next fact gives part of the answer. Water that sits for a long time loses much of its oxygen.
So what? Why care about oxygen in coffee water?
The final sentence supplies that connection: oxygen-rich water makes a better cup. Now the recommendation has a chain behind it. Hot tap water has been sitting; sitting means losing oxygen; lower oxygen means giving up a coffee-quality benefit.
I might still ask whether hot water offers another advantage, such as a quicker brewing process. But the question isn't asking us to evaluate every possible tradeoff. It asks what the statement about hot water sitting in the tank does in this argument.
What we’re looking for
Start with the conclusion, 'Use cold water,' and trace the support backward. The tank statement gives a fact about hot water that the author combines with the oxygen-loss rule. Neither fact does the whole job by itself. Together they explain why the author expects hot tap water to be poorer in oxygen than the alternative.
Working the answers
- A
The author says oxygen-rich water improves coffee, not that oxygen is the main determinant of quality. The beans or other factors could matter more. And the fact that hot water sat in a tank doesn't establish how important oxygen is to taste. It helps explain the water's oxygen content, which is a different step.
- B
This is the tempting distinction. The statement tells us hot tap water has been sitting. It doesn't establish the rule that sitting water loses oxygen. That rule is supplied separately and then applied to the hot water.
Imagine learning that a particular cup of water has been in a tank all day. Unless we already know what sitting does to water, that fact alone doesn't give us evidence that resting releases oxygen. B treats a fact that triggers the rule as support for the rule itself.
- CCorrect
The tank statement places hot tap water in the situation described by the oxygen-loss rule. Because hot water has typically been resting, and resting releases oxygen, the author uses it to support the comparison: hot tap water contains less oxygen than cold water.
The passage doesn't have to state that intermediate comparison in its own sentence for it to play a role. It connects the information about storage to the recommendation based on oxygen-rich water making better coffee.
- D
By itself, sitting in a tank gives us no reason to prefer cold water. We need both the oxygen-loss connection and a reason to care about oxygen when making coffee. D wrongly gives one link credit for the entire argument.
- E
The tank statement doesn't establish the relationship between oxygen and coffee quality. That relationship is another piece of support the author supplies. It also doesn't show that oxygen content overrides every possible difference between two cups, as 'always' might suggest. The statement concerns the water's storage history, not proof of a universal rule about taste.
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