Crenkotown, USA has a large population of Korean Americans.

Ok, here's my take:

Crenkotown, USA has a large population of Korean Americans. Some of them make a living by delivering otherwise hard to find comforts of home to their fellow countrymen and women. In Crenkotown, between 1957 and 1971, commercial delivers of kimchi- a staple Korean food-increased from 12 to 25. However, during the same time period the number of Koreans living in Crenkotown stayed roughly constant. Therefore, it is unlikely that many more Crenkotownies had kimchi delivered in 1971 than in 1957.

The conclusion rests on which of the following assumptions ?

A. In 1971, most Korean-Americans living in Crenkotown purchased kimchi deliverires from a commercial delivery service-
This statement is relevant but it fails to provide a comparison with relevant numbers in 1957. Hence can be eliminated.
B. In 1971, almost all of those who wanted kimchi delivered were within the range of a delivery service
Same as A
C. Not all of the kimchi available for delivery in Crenkotown in 1971 were of the same variety pr quality
Quality is irelevant. OFS.
D. None of the commercial operations that started delivering kimchi after 1957 serviced areas in Crenkotown that didn't formerly have delivery service.
This correctly states that the delivery range has not changed from 1957. The negation test will establish this is the correct answer.
E. Per capita demand for kimchi among Korean-Americans in Crenkotown want unchanged from 1957 to 1971.
The argument clearly states that the number of people living in Crenkotown has remained unchanged. So, this statement would essentially weaken the conclusion. While we need to find information that would make the conclusion true -Incorrect!


It took me 4 min to get this one, so would have essentially gotten it wrong on the actual test!

Here we can establish the assumption by negation test.
If we say that the commercial operations started in new areas then we the conclusion that more citizens did not got the deliveries will fall. Hence negating D will fail the argument.
D is the answer.

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Imo D

The main point of the argument is that Koreans living in Crenkotown did not order more kimchi in 1971 then they did in 1957. The argument goes about how number of people have remain constant and the number of deliveries increased . The argument takes different turn that the increase in the number of deliveries was because of Koreans living in Crenkotown .

We have to search for the option that does exactly that remember this is an assumption question so we can always use negation test to test two close choices.

A is irrelevant as folks can order from some other service that is not professional . Still they can have more kimchi.

B Again this is not giving us new information and if devilries centers were within range then also this does not prove that folks have not had more kimchi .

C Again it is nice to have more option for the sake of taste but this is also out of scope of the argument .

D Correct This assumes that folks in Crenkotown would not be able to order from some new service so the increase in deliveries was due to some other region .

E is a contradiction of the argument .Just think about it in mathematical sense let say the current ratio is 1/3 it can be maintained both by increasing both number of deliveries of and by number of folks.The deliveries and number of people can remain the same . Thus this does not help us with our conclusion.

Premise says: "Number of Koreans living in Crenkotown stayed roughly constant"

Conclusion says: "Therefore, it is unlikely that many more Crenkotownies had kimchi delivered in 1971 than in 1957".

Assumption:1) Significant number of existing koreans living in Crenkotown were getting kimachi in 1957. Only negligible number of existing koreans living in Crenkotown can start buying kimchi.
Assumption:2) Koreans living in Crenkotown bought significant amount of kimchi. No other community bought kimchi.

Now Our job is to find an answer choice that hits mentioned assumption.

Option D is the only answer choice that touches the mentioned assumption.

Option E talks about per capita consumption. However, conclusion talks about count of people. Hence, E cannot be correct answer.

Hope this helps.

Meaning Analysis:

The argument says that deliverers have increased, but the population has stayed constant. So it is concluded that population of Cranketown who had Kimchi delivered in 1971 was equal or less than in 1951 (see how the last statement presents the conclusion)

Pre-thinking:

There are two ways to keep the number of deliveries in Kimchi same in both years:

1) Increased number of deliverers services same geographical regions ( Think about the case when most deliverers serviced other regions not serviced in 1951, this would increase the number of deliveries and argument would fall apart

2) Significant number of people had Kimachi delivered to them before

Analysis:


A. In 1971, most Korean-Americans living in Crenkotown purchased kimchi deliverires from a commercial delivery service (So what ? how is it compared to 1951 ?)
B. In 1971, almost all of those who wanted kimchi delivered were within the range of a delivery service (So what ? where is the comparison between 1951 and 1971) ?
C. Not all of the kimchi available for delivery in Crenkotown in 1971 were of the same variety pr quality (So what ? We are talking about numbers and not quality)
D. None of the commercial operations that started delivering kimchi after 1957 serviced areas in Crenkotown that didn't formerly have delivery service. (Aha ! Same as our pre-thinking 1)
E. Per capita demand for kimchi among Korean-Americans in Crenkotown want unchanged from 1957 to 1971. (Per-capita is different from number of people)

The reason E) is not a weakener is that it's negation is not devastating.

Per capita demand went "unchanged". It surely can change. It can decrease as well. Also note that the conclusion
"it is unlikely that many more Crenkotownies had kimchi delivered in 1971 than in 1957" compares two timeframes, i.e 1971 and 1957 and nothing in between.
E) Per capita demand for kimchi among Korean-Americans in Crenkotown went unchanged from 1957 to 1971. This option choice says that the demand DIDN'T CHANGE in ANY of the years in between. This is way too broad.

Had the phrasing been the following:
Avg per capita demand didn't increase in 1971 as compared to 1957's.

Then this choice would have been perfect.

Option D is correct but your explanation is wrong.
The question says that the number of COMPANIES which delivered kimchi increased, not the number of kimchi. Assuming that the whole town had already been covered by the companies that had existed since 1951, the additional companies did not help to serve more people because everyone in town had already been served and the population did not change. Option D points out this assumption.

Option E is irrelevant because the kimchi per capita ratio cannot be deducted logically since the question does not give any info about the number of kimchi sold.

E is incorrect because if one were to negate it, even if per capital demand changed (say it increased), some of the folks may not even be able to get kimchi delivered to them, in which case, it will not break the conclusion.

Firstly look at the conclusion, the author is trying to say that it is "UNLIKELY" that many more Crenkotownies had kimchi delivered in 1971 than in 1957.
This statement means that in 1957 more kimchi was delivered as compared to 1971. To make the conclusion true only option D can be used as assumption.
Option A and B talks about how the kimchi delivery increased in 1971 and Option E is a weakner as if the demand stated constant how the conclusion will stand strong? Thats why option D is the correct choice.

Hope this helps.

more like a 750+ level question than a 800+ level question.

We do not assign the difficulty level manually. The difficulty level of a question on the site is determined automatically based on various parameters collected from users' attempts, such as the percentage of correct answers and the time taken to answer the question. You can find the difficulty level of a question and its related statistics in the first post. So, the difficulty level of this question is 800+ Level based on the timer attempts from the users.