Many winemakers use cork stoppers; but cork stoppers can leak, crumble, or became moldy, so that those winemakers must often discard a significant proportion of their inventory of bottled wine. Bottlemaster plastic stoppers, which cannot leak, crumble, or mold, have long been available to winemakers, at a price slightly higher than that of traditional cork stoppers. Cork prices, however are expected to rise dramatically in the near future. Clearly, therefore, winemakers who still use cork but wish to keep production costs from rising will be forced to reconsider plastic stoppers. And since the wine-buying public's association of plastic stoppers with poor-quality wine is weakening, there is an excellent chance that the Bottlemaster plastic stopper will gain an increased share of the market for wine-bottle stoppers.
In the argument given, the two portions in boldface play which of the following roles?
A)The first is a judgment that has been advanced in support of a position that the argument opposes; the second is the main conclusion of the argument.
B)The first is a judgment that has been advanced in support of a position that the argument opposes; the second is conclusion drawn in order to support the main conclusion of the argument.
C)The first is the main conclusion of the argument; the second provides evidence in support of that main conclusion.
D)The first is the main conclusion of the argument; the second is a restatement of that main conclusion.
E)The first is a conclusion drawn in order to support the main conclusion of the argument; the second is that main conclusion.

I pick E aswell and I agree with the above explanation.

I believe the choice is between (D) and (E).

I think that the first bold statement is an intermediate conclusion. The main conclusion is that the pastic corks will gain a bigger market share. To prove this the author is states two possible facts

1. obviously as the costs increase the wine makers will switch to plastic corks
2. wine-buying public's association of plastic stoppers with poor-quality wine is weakening n
These people will probably switch to better quality wines and hence contribute to bigger customer base of other non-cheap wines.
Another reason to consider is the wines are cheap probably because of low priced cork screws.

I would go for (E)

I agree with anandnk that BF1 is the intermediate conclusion. BF1 plus fact 4 leads to the final conclusion that mkt share of plastic stopper would increase. The paragraph's main idea is not to argue that people will have to reconsider using plastic stoppers. If it is so then the argument can stop right before Fact 4. However its final conclusion is that not only people will think about using them, but also people will actually use them.
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Keep on asking, and it will be given you;
keep on seeking, and you will find;
keep on knocking, and it will be opened to you.

I will go for D

agree with E.