From 1965 to 1988, spending on food in the United States climbed 46 pe

A is definately strong. B is tempting but think that people buying from regular stores 26% and 20% from supermarket.
Compared with 26% spending on restaurants and 20% on supermarkets makes more sense.

Also B reads people bought 'certain products' from regular stores. if it would have said a 'very high percentage' of food from regular stores... B would have been a better choice.
hope this helps.

The stimulus says that spending on food to be consumed at home grew by only 20% which implies spending on food not consumed at home must have increased to balance out the spending. A says the same thing.

B says shoppers spent more on certain food products to be consumed at home that are no generally available in supermarket . This is not strong enough since according to stimulus most spending on food to be consumed at home was done at supermarket.

Hope it helps

I took some extra seconds just to double check...
so spending on food rose 46%
spending on products to be consumed at home - 20%
it must be true that more people spend $ on take out or ate at restaurants/cafes/etc.

A is the only one that fits.

(A) Spending on food increased at restaurants and other food retailers that prepare food to be consumed away from home. - Correct
(B) Shoppers spent more on certain food products to be consumed at home that are not generally available in supermarkets. - Out of Scope
(C) Food prices at supermarkets neither rose nor dropped relative to food prices at other food retailers. - Food prices = Irrelevant.
(D There was a decrease in the number of heads of households, who tend to spend more than other household members on food consumed away from home. - Common flaw. Mixing # with %s.
(E) The number of people who ate at restaurants decreased relative to the number of people who ordered take-out food from restaurants. - Common flaw. Mixing # with %s.

I see a lot of confusion between options A and B.
The confusion, in my opinion, arises because of the words purchased mainly from supermarkets. These words are a modifier modifying products to be consumed at home. It implied that most of the products to be consumed at home are bought from supermarkets, including the products to be consumed at home but bought not at supermarkets, the overall home products have risen only 20%.
Therefore another 26% increase should be from not at-home products.

VeritasKarishma mam though I was able to arrive at correct answer A, Can you please share a strong reason for eliminating Option B

Spending on food in the United States climbed 46 percent.
Spending on food to be consumed at home — purchased mainly from supermarkets — grew by only 20 percent.

Note that "purchased mainly from supermarkets" is an aside. It is not the main part of the sentence. It gives us some extra information that food consumed at home is purchased mainly from supermarkets (but it could be purchased from other stores too)

The main sentence is this:
Spending on food to be consumed at home grew by only 20 percent.

Then the rest of the extra spending must have happened for food to be consumed outside of home - wherever that may be.

(A) Spending on food increased at restaurants and other food retailers that prepare food to be consumed away from home.

Option (A) clearly mentions retailers that prepare food to be consumed away from home. So it covers the "away from home" parameter well. Hence, this is correct.

(B) Shoppers spent more on certain food products to be consumed at home that are not generally available in supermarkets.

They spent 20% extra on all food consumed at home (whether bought at supermarkets or other places). So we cannot make the distinction between supermarkets and other places. The argument only gives us the figure for at home consumption (including all places from where people buy for at home consumption)
So (B) is incorrect.

Answer (A)

Thank you so much mam for explaining in such a lucid way ....Crystal Clear now

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