Sharon puts a large pot of water on the stove to boil pasta. Then she starts to make a tomato sauce. When the sauce is cooking, she looks at the pot of water and thinks the water level is much lower than it was. How does this diagram of part of the water cycle help Sharon explain what happened to the pasta water?

1. A

2. C

Explanation:

For the first question, we know that the water transformed into a gas. This fact eliminates choices C and D, primarily because they describe the change as "gas to liquid" instead of liquid to gas.

What separates B from A is that B is saying the liquid changed to a gas in response to sunlight, which is completely false and impertinent to the prompt.

A is the correct answer.

for the second question, we know that condensation causes clouds -- and that neither evaporation nor water vapor would clear clouds to make more of them, which eliminates choices B and D. Going back to condensation, the accumulation of water vapor plays a big role in the formation of clouds. While evaporation does play a part in [it] as well, condensation is what caused the sudden appearance of clouds in the troposphere.

C is the correct answer.