Self-study
The retail price of decaffeinated coffee is considerably higher than that of regular coffee. ████████ ███ ███████ ██ █████ ██████ █████ ███ █████████████ ██ ██████ ██████ ███ ███ ████ ███████ ██████████ ███ █████ ██████████ ██████ ██ █████████ ███ ██ ███ ███████ ████ ██ █████████ █████████████ ██████ ██ ███ █████████
Summary
The author concludes that the price difference between regular coffee and decaf coffee can’t be explained by the greater cost of providing decaf to the consumer.
Why?
Because the process by which coffee beans are decaffeinated isn’t very costly.
Notable Assumptions
The author assumes that there aren’t significant sources of cost that are part of “providing decaf” to consumers aside from the processing of coffee beans to make them decaffeinated. This overlooks the posssibility that, for example, decaffeinated coffee costs significantly more than regular coffee to transport or to store.
22.
The argument relies on assuming █████ ███ ██ ███ ██████████
a
Processing regular coffee █████ ████ ████ ██████████ █████████████ ███████
Not necessary, because if processing regular coffee does NOT cost more than processing decaffeinated coffee, that can still support the author’s position that the extra price of decaf coffee isn’t explained by the cost of providing decaf to the consumer. For example, the processing cost of regular coffee might be the same as that for decaf — that supports the claim that the difference in price must be due to something besides the cost of providing decaf coffee.
b
Price differences between ████████ ███ █████████ ██ █████████ ███ ██ ████ ███████ ██ ██████ ███ ███████ ███ ██ ███████████ ██ ██████████ ██████
Not necessary, because the author doesn’t propose any particular factors that would explain the price difference. So the author doesn’t have to believe that supply and demand are explanatory factors either generally or in the case of coffee. Maybe there are other reasons for the price difference besides supply and demand and besides production costs.
c
There is little ███████████ █████ █████████ ████ ███████ █████████████ ███████
Not necessary, because “competition” has no role in the reasoning of the argument. Even if there’s a lot of competition among companies that process decaffeinated coffee, that doesn’t suggest anything about the reason for the price difference between regular and decaf.
d
Retail coffee-sellers do ███ ██████ ████ █████████ ███ ███████ ██ ███ ████ ███ █████████████ ██████ ████ ███ ███████ ███████
Not necessary, because what retail sellers expect is irrelevant to the argument. We already know the retail price of decaf is higher than that of regular coffee. Whether sellers expect consumers to be content with that or not doesn’t change the fact that there is a price difference, nor does it suggest anything about the reason for that price difference.
e
The beans used ███ █████████ █████████████ ██████ ██ ███ ████ ████ ████ ██████ ██████████ ████ ███ █████ ████ ███ █████████ ███████ ███████
Necessary, because if the beans used for producing decaf coffee DO cost much more before processing than the beans used for producing regular coffee, then the price difference MIGHT be accounted for by the greater cost of “providing” decaf coffee. (E) points out that there could be other components of “providing” coffee besides merely the cost of processing the coffee beans. The author must assume that these other components — such as the price of the bean itself — do not explain the price difference between decaf and regular.