The air quality board recently informed Coffee Roast, a small coffee roasting firm, of a complaint regarding the smoke from its roaster. Recently enacted air quality regulations require machine roasting more than 10 pounds of coffee to be equipped with expensive smoke-dissipating afterburners. The firm, however, roasts only 8 pounds of coffee at a time. Nevertheless, the company has decided to purchase and install an afterburner.
P: Air quality regulations require machines roasting more than 10lbs of coffee to be equipped with afterburners
P: Coffee Roast only roasts 8 pounds of coffee at a time
C: Nevertheless, they decided to get an afterburner
It would seem odd that the firm got an afterburner if there is not a CURRENT need for it…but the possibility that they WILL need to use it in the future (for whatever reason) is still in play and would justify the purchase
Which of the following, if true, most strongly supports the firm’s decision?
(A) Until setting on the new air quality regulations, the board had debated whether to require afterburners for machines roasting more than 5 pounds of coffee at a time.
-“had debated” is in the past perfect tense…in other words their debates are over…what they talked about before is inconsequential since they already made the decision to go with 10+ lbs
-is the window open for them to change the regulations in the future? Sure…but that’s purely speculation and we don’t know anything beyond what we’re told here
OUT
(B) Coffee roasted in a machine equipped with an afterburner has its flavor subtly altered.
-taste is irrelevant
(C) The cost to the firm of an afterburner is less than the cost of replacing its roaster with a smaller one.
-cost is irrelevant…does a lower cost necessarily justify a purchase? No. On the other hand, could it? Possibly if it will save costs for the firm
-unclear what direction this goes in or what affect it’s supposed to have
(D) Fewer complaints are reported in areas that maintain strict rules regarding afterburners.
-this choice is related to the argument, but fails to justify the firm’s decision
(E) The firm has reason to fear that negative publicity regarding the complaints could result in lost sales.
Correct. This makes logical sense…the firm doesn’t roast more than 8lbs of coffee, but the complaints that are associated with no afterburners could harm sales/profitability…a perfectly valid reason for why the manager made the decision
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