Arbitrageur wrote:
The Calex Telecommunications Company is planning to introduce cellular telephone service into isolated coastal areas of Caladia, a move which will require considerable investment. However, the only significant economic activity in these areas is small-scale coffee farming, and none of the coffee farmers make enough money to afford the monthly service fees that Calex would have to charge to make a profit. Nevertheless, Calex contends that making the service available to these farmers will be profitable.
Which of the following, if true, provides the strongest support for Calex's contention?
(A) Currently, Caladian coffee farmers are forced to sell their coffee to local buyers at whatever price those buyers choose to pay because the farmers are unable to remain in contact with outside buyers who generally offer higher prices.
-Strengthens(B) In the coastal areas of Caladia where Calex proposes to introduce cellular telephone service, there is currently no fixed-line telephone service because fixed-line companies do not believe that they could recoup their investment.-
Irrelevant, no relation b/w fixed line and cellular service, we cannot assume anything.(C) A cellular telephone company can break even with a considerably smaller number of subscribers than a fixed-line company can, even in areas such as the Caladian coast, where there is no difficult terrain to drive up the costs of installing fixed lines.--
not sufficient as we are not talking about competition and we don't know whether fixed lines companies are making profits.(D) Calex bases its monthly fees for cellular telephone service in a given region partly on the cost of installing the necessary equipment to provide the service there.-
-no relation with the argument.(E) Calex has for years made a profit on cellular telephone service in Caladia's capital city, which is not far from the coastal region.-
A shell game answer, and we cannot generalize.This is a straight forward question. Answer is A.
Option a: Currently, Caladian coffee farmers are forced to sell their coffee to local buyers at whatever price those buyers choose to pay because the farmers are unable to remain in contact with outside buyers who generally offer higher prices.Premise: The only significant economic activity in these areas is small-scale coffee farming, and none of the coffee farmers make enough money to afford the monthly service fees that Calex would have to charge to make a profit.Option A.) It is clear from the premise and option A that ,if the cellular phone helps the Caladian coffee farmers with their profits, Calex can definitely charge these farmers appropriately to make profits.
I also thought A to be the right answer initially, But later, I ended up eliminating it thinking there is no explanation provided either in the passage or the answer choice that the company will help the farmers to sell their coffee produce.