(Premise 1) Oil prices to industrial customers are low this year and likely to remain so.
(Option A or B or C or D or E) This option will connect the first premise to the conclusion and strengthen the argument as a whole
(Conclusion) If winter is not severe, natural gas price will also remain low.
Lets analyse option E first
(Premise 1) Oil prices to industrial customers are low this year and likely to remain so.
(Option E) Oil distribution is more likely to be affected by severe winter weather than is the distribution of natural gas.
If Oil distribution is severely affected by severe winter then oil price will naturally go up. demand and supply.
But Premise states that Oil prices are low and are likely to stay so. Hence oil distribution is not going to be affected. Meaning winters are not going to be severe. Even if winter is severe, it makes no difference to gas distribution because gas distribution is not affected by severe winter.
Conclusion: If winter is not severe, natural gas price will also remain low.
Option E connects the premise and conclusion nicely.
Lets check B
Oil prices to industrial customers are low this year and likely to remain so.
(B) The industrial users who consume most natural gas can quickly and cheaply switch to using oil instead.
If there are 500 oil user and 500 gas user, and if all 500 gas user switches to oil, then oil price will go up. So if winter is severe or if winter is not severe, it does not makes a 2 cent difference to anyone because half of the industries are using oil and oil price is unlikely to change and other half will quickly change to oil because they have the capabilities to do so.
Now how is this option connecting the premise and conclusion ????
Conclusion: If winter is not severe, natural gas price will also remain low.
even if winter is severe, gas price will remain unaffected because no one is using gas. remember the 500 industry who use gas can switch to oil
Option B neither strengthen our conclusion nor it connects the premise to the conclusion.
How can Option B be the right answer ????
WHAT AM I MISSING?
Can anyone explain this question using other easy real life examples.
VeritasPrepKarishma wrote:
gauravkaushik8591 wrote:
PREMISE: Despite the approach of winter, oil prices to industrial customers are exceptionally low this year and likely to remain so.
CONCLUSION: Therefore, unless the winter is especially severe, the price of natural gas to industrial customers is also likely to remain low.
From what I understand, it means - Oil prices are low, therefore the natural gas prices are low. (unless there's severe winter)
So it means both the prices work in unison unless there's severe winter. So the SEVERE WINTER must introduce some irregularity. Right?
E states the irregularity.
Oil prices to industrial customers are low this year and likely to remain so.
Conclusion: If winter is not severe, natural gas price will also remain low.
So we are concluding that since oil prices are low, natural gas prices will remain low too. How can we strengthen the conclusion? In some way, we need to establish that gas prices will stay low if winters are not overly severe.
(B) The industrial users who consume most natural gas can quickly and cheaply switch to using oil instead.
This tells us that if gas prices go up, users will switch to the cheaper oil. If this happens, gas prices will go down again. Hence, if oil prices stay low, gas prices will stay low too.
This helps strengthen our conclusion.
(E) Oil distribution is more likely to be affected by severe winter weather than is the distribution of natural gas.
This doesn't explain the relation between oil and gas prices and hence doesn't strengthen our conclusion.