Self-study
Commentator: Although the present freshwater supply is adequate for today's patterns of water use, the Support human population will increase substantially over the next few decades, drastically increasing the need for freshwater. ██████ ████████████ ██ █████ ███ ████ ██ █████████ ██ ████ ███ ██████████ █████ ██ █████████ ██ ███ ███████████████ ███████
Summary
There will be more people in the next few decades, who will require more water. Therefore, it is necessary to place restrictions on water usage to meet those needs.
Notable Assumptions
The argument moves from a claim that larger populations in the future will need more water than the population today to the conclusion that restrictions on water usage will be necessary. It does not, however, provide a statement that explains why restrictions will be the only way to meet those increased needs. There is therefore a necessary assumption that there won’t be other ways of meeting the increased needs.
1.
Which one of the following ██ ██ ██████████ ████████ ██ ███ █████████
a
Humans will adapt ██ ████████████ ██ ███ ███ ██ █████ ███████ █████████ ██ ████████ ███ ██ █████ ███████ ██████████
The argument’s conclusion is that restrictions are necessary to meet water needs - it does not require any assumptions about how well people will adapt to those restrictions to claim that they’re necessary.
b
The total supply ██ ██████████ ███ ███ ██████████ ██ ██████ ██████
The argument doesn’t need to look at current freshwater trends. It concludes that increased population needs will require restrictions, and this can be true (and may even be more likely to be true) if freshwater supply has been diminishing.
c
The freshwater supply ████ ███ ████████ ████████████ ██ ████ ███ █████████ █████ ██ ██████████
This is one way of filling the gap - it rules out the possibility of an alternate way of meeting the increased needs. The restrictions are only necessary because there wouldn’t be enough freshwater otherwise.
d
No attempt to ██████████ █████ ████ ████ ██ ███████████ ██████ ██ ███ ████████ ██ ██████████ ██████████
The argument does not need to assume that attempts to synthesize water will have no effect at all - it only needs to say that restrictions would still be required.
e
No water conservation ███████ ██████████ █████████ ███████ ██ ████████ ██ ███ ██████ ██ ██████████ █████████ ███ █████ ████
The argument’s conclusion that restrictions are necessary can be true whether or not previous measures have been successful.