A consultant recommendation:
1. Algorpal could expand into pneumatic filters for biomedical research technology, a rapidly expanding market.
2. The consultant argued that this single change could reverse a ten-year decline in Algorpal’s profits.

Option A: Information related to other markets is completely out of scope.

Option B: Whether the number of biomedical devices is greater or less than the number of pieces of equipment requiring filters on a single farm is irrelevant to the profits as claimed by the consultant.

Option C: Same as of B. This can be true but Air quality will not give any info regarding the profits.

Option D: If there is a stiff competition then it may prove to be difficult to gain profits and if the competition is less compared to agricultural sector then firm may gain profits. This info is needed to evaluate the argument properly.

Option E: Info regarding other countries is completely out of scope and is not going explain anything.

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.
_________________

Thanks!
Do give some kudos.

Simple strategy:
“Once you’ve eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth.”

Want to improve your Score:
GMAT Ninja YouTube! Series 1| GMAT Ninja YouTube! Series 2 | How to Improve GMAT Quant from Q49 to a Perfect Q51 | Time management

My Notes:
Reading comprehension | Critical Reasoning | Absolute Phrases | Subjunctive Mood