Algorpal Industries produces high quality pneumatic filters. For years

Official Explanation

The core of the consultant's argument is: branching into this new sector will bring new profits, profits to replace what was lost in the agriculture sector. The credited answer is (D): whether branching into this new biomedical sector indeed will replace the former profits.

Choice (A) raises a different question, profits from a third sector not mentioned. This might offer yet another alternative, but it's not directly relevant to the question: will entering the biomedical sector replace former profits?

Choice (B) might appear to be relevant to the question of profits, but suppose we knew the precise answer to this --- suppose we knew, say, that each farm had five machines and each research center had three machines. Then what? How many farms overall are there? How many biomedical research centers overall are there? We don't know, so we can't evaluate the question of total profits.

Choice (C) is an interesting distractor. Whatever a pneumatic filter may filter, it probably has something to do with air. Are these filters filtering ambient air in the room, or are they filtering some particular internal channel within the machine? We don't know, and even if we did, we would still be a long way off from deciding anything about profits.

Choice (E), like Choice (A), offers another option, another avenue that Algorpal might decide to follow instead of, or in addition to, the consultant's recommendation. The task here, though, quite specifically, is to evaluate the consultant's recommendation. How successful another avenue would be tells us nothing about how successful the plan recommended by the consultant would be.

I choose D because all other options are irrelevant. Please explain why D is correct?

In conclusion, the consultant tells that the decline in the profits could be reversed.
i.e the profits will increase. But answer choice D question the profits? Why do we question about profitability when the author has told that the decline in profits will be reversed.

The argument is based on the assumption that the new product will sell significantly on the new market.
Any option choice that will help answer the question: "will this new product's profits compensate for the loss in profits?" will be our answer choice.

All options are irrelevant except for D.
If the answer to D is YES then the argument is strengthened.
If the answer is NO the argument is weakened.

Hence D correct

I'm also having trouble understanding why D is correct. We are not told what the company's profitability had been.

Any other inputs to further clarify this?

Option D asks whether profits in the biomedical sector would be "similar" to those in the agricultural sector, but it doesn't explicitly address whether profits would be higher or lower (If higher it strength the argument if lower it weakens). And if profits were "similar," it wouldn't necessarily lead to a reversal in the company's declining profits. And since similar not explicitly strengthen or weaken and non similar weakens i wasn't sure about D.

For me option B made more logic since if the number of filters required in the biomedical industry is lower than what is required in the agricultural sector, this would impact the potential revenue and profitability of the new market.

If biomedical research centers require fewer filters, Algorpal Industries might face lower sales volumes in the biomedical market compared to their current agricultural market. This could potentially limit the effectiveness of the proposed market shift in reversing their declining profits.

D.Whether the competition in the biomedical technology sector would allow for profits similar to what those in the agricultural sector had been

This goes straight to the core of the consultant’s claim: that this move will reverse a profit decline. If competition is too intense, profits might be too low, even in a growing market. Conversely, manageable competition could mean sustainable profits.