Self-study
The town of Springhill frequently must declare a water emergency, making it temporarily unlawful to use water for such nonessential purposes as car washing. █████ ███████████ █████ ██ ███████ ██ ██████████ █████ █████████ █████████ ████████ ██████████ ███ █████ █████████████ █████████ ██████████ ███████████ ████████████ ███████ ████ █████████ ████ █ ██████ ███████ ████ ███ ███ ███ ██████ ██ █████ █████ █ ███████ █████ ██████████ ███ █ ███████████ █████████ ████ ████ █████ ███ █████████ ██ ████████
Summarize Argument
The author concludes that Springhill discourages water conservation. This is because households in Springhill pay a low monthly flat rate for their water, and are only charged per liter if they exceed a threshold.
Notable Assumptions
The author assumes that the threshold is high enough that most households don’t end up paying the substantial per-liter rate once the threshold is exceeded.
15.
Which one of the following, ██ █████ ████ ███████████ ███ █████████
a
The Springhill authorities ██ █ ████ ███ ██ █████████ ███ █████ █████████ ████ ███ ████ ██████ █████ ███ ████ ███████ █████████ █ ████████
The argument centers around whether Springhill's normal policies currently discourage water conservation. How emergency measures are enforced isn't relevant to that.
b
The town council ██ ██████████ ████████ ███████ ██ █████ ███ ██████████
We have no idea how high the threshold was to begin with. If it's not extremely high already, refusing to raise the threshold suggests a concern with conserving water, which potentially even weakens the author’s argument.
c
The threshold is ████ ██ █ ████ ██████ █████ ██ ██████ ███ █████ ████████████ ██ ████ ██████████ ██ ███████████
Most households never hit the threshold, which means they never pay the per-liter fee. This strengthens the argument by showing that Springhill indeed isn’t encouraging people to cut back on their water usage.
d
The threshold is ███ ██ ████ ██ ██████████ ██ ██ ██ ██ ███████████ ██████
This doesn’t give us enough information, because we don't know anything about the neighboring towns. The threshold may still be high enough that most people never pay the per-liter fee—we can't say.
e
The threshold remains ██ ███ █████████████ █████ █████████ ██ ███ █████ █ ██████ ██ ████████ ██ ███ ██████████ ████ ████████
This simply tells us how the threshold is set. We need to know if it’s set high enough that most households never pay the per-liter rate. Since this doesn't tell us, it's irrelevant.