Q22 - The retail price of decaffeinated

[cvfh17]

why E is better than D?

[tommywallach]

Hey Cvf,

This may sound like a small thing, but I always encourage students not to think in terms of "better" and "worse," but in terms of "right" and "wrong." There are always 4 wrong answers and 1 right answer. It's not a gradient of rightness. : )

This is a necessary assumption question, so let's start by focusing on the core:

Conclusion: The price difference between caf and decaf cannot be accounted for by the greater cost of providing decaf
Premise: It's cheap to decaf coffee

This argument assumes that the only issue that might affect cost is the process itself. But there are other issues that might affect cost.

(A) definitely wouldn't help the argument, because it's the decaf that's more expensive.

(B) tries to generalize out, but we only care about this particular case, not other products.

(C) might be tempting, because a lack of competition might cause prices to rise. But it wouldn't explain why decaf is more expensive than caf.

(D) is very tricky, but it's actually the opposite of what we need. If retailers did expect people to pay more for decaf, then we could explain the price difference just as a function of cost rising to whatever place people would be willing to pay. But if retailers don't expect to pay more for decaf, then we still don't know why the price is greater.

(E) CORRECT. If the beans themselves cost more, than the price difference couldbe explained by a greater cost in providing decaf coffee.

Hope that helps!

-t

[slimz89]

Just wanted to add why choice B is wrong.
True it generalizes, but in addition all it would do is go against the conclusion. B says price differences can be accounted for because of supply and demand which is the opposite of the conclusion that says the price difference cannot accounted for by the greater cost of providing decaffeinated coffee to the consumer

[ttunden]

Here is my explanation which is a little different than tommys.


So, here in the argument we are talking about decaff and regular coffee. The author is saying that decaff is more expensive than regular coffee. The authors conclusion is that the price difference cannot be accounted for by the greater cost of providing decaff coffee to the consumer.

The authors support is that the process by which coffee beans are decaff is fairly simple and not very costly.

The gap I noticed is that the author talks about something fairly narrow or talks about 1 aspect... the process of decaffing the bean.. but then the conclusion talks about "cost of providing decaff coffee to the consumer." you see the shift? The authors evidence only consists of turning regular beans to decaff but perhaps there are other reasons for the greater cost such as location where bean is grown/type of coffee bean, packing, logistics, and etc.

So when I hit the answer choices I'm looking for something that the argument relies on to reach its conclusion. Something that perhaps eliminates what I talked about earlier.

A - This was tricky to me. I thought the author was assuming this at first because the decaff is not very costly to process and so I thought the author was assuming this. I didn't choose this answer but left it as a contender and moved on.

B - No eliminated it because I thought ti was out of scope. The author isn't assuming this when he goes to the conclusion. This doesn't have to be true in reaching the conclusion.

C - No out of scope, who cares about the competition. Author is not assuming this and this is not necessary in reaching the conclusion.

D - No, once again out of scope. Who cares about what the sellers think or the consumers think. This isn't necessary and not what the author is assuming when reaching the conclusion.

E - Ahh yes this has to be it. This would eliminate what I prephased and how the author would reach his/her conclusion. If we negate this... "The beans used for producing decaff coffee DO COST much more before processing than the beans used for producing regular coffee" then this would destroy the conclusion because the author hinges on saying that the process to decaff is simple and not very costly... well if we negated E then the beans for decaff are very expensive before hand and do justify the retail price of decaff being higher than regular coffee. This would be part of the broader "greater cost of providing decaff coffee to the consumer."

E was the right answer choice since it destroys the conclusion when negated and is somewhat implied ( in non negated form ) when reaching the conclusion.

A if negated.... "Processing regular coffee does not cost more than processing decaff coffee" well that would not destroy the argument because the conclusion can still stand. It would show that the price difference still cannot be accounted for by the greater cost of providing decaff coffee.

[roflcoptersoisoi]

P1: Retail price of decaffeinated coffee greatly exceeds that of regular coffee.
P2: Process by which beans are decaffeinated is not costly

C: Price differential between decaffeinated coffee and regular coffee cannot be accounted for providing decaffeinated coffee to the customer.

Assumption: There isn't another factor/step in the production of decaffeinated coffee that can account of the price differential between the two. Perhaps the beans are situated in another part of the glob and transportation cost of those beans renders the production of decaffeinated coffee even more expensive.


(A) This has no bearing on the argument. It need not be true that processing regular coffee costs more than decaffeinated coffee, eliminate.
(B) This is definitely not necessary. We're talking about coffee, we need not assume that price difference of PRODUCTS (of which coffee is a subset) can be accounted for by factors apart from difference in production cost.
(C) Completely irrelevant, eliminate. This has no affect on the argument
(D) Same as (C)
(E) Bingo. This is what we're looking for. This corresponds with our prediction of the assumption. IF negated: The beans for decaffeinated coffee cost more than before processing that regular coffee beans. This completely destroys the author's contention that the price differential cannot be accounted for by providing decaffeinated coffee to customers.

[vstoever]

A is wrong because they could cost the same amount to process so A is not necessary