Best answer: (C)
Identify the conclusion and the premise(s):
Premise: The average price of chicken in the United States was $1.50 per pound from 1995 to 1999 and $2.00 per pound from 2000 to 2004.
Premise: The average consumption of chicken per capita per year from 1995 to 1999 was 100 pounds per person; the corresponding figure for 2000 to 2004 was the same.
Conclusion: Rising chicken prices have no effect on consumers’ decisions.
Explanations:
Identify question type and give some tips:
The correct answer will rule out alternate explanations; there may be several reasons why consumers did not cut down on chicken consumption. For example, it cannot be ruled out that they do not have a threshold at which point they would become price sensitive, but be careful of the scope: “had no effect” means we are concerned only with the periods in question (the past). Perhaps, also, they are not purchasing chicken for its intrinsic qualities…
Scan each answer choice by eliminating progressively each “wrong” answer to finish with the “best” answer:
(C) establishes that this is not the case, that chicken is not simply being substituted for an even more expensive commodity, and this is vital to the argument. We would still have no way of verifying or falsifying the conclusion regardless of whether (A) or (B) was true, so those choices are wrong, and consumers might still be price-sensitive even if they were richer. (D) makes an extreme statement that goes outside the scope of the argument; we are not concerned with generalities, only chicken. (E) adds a third data point but it need not be true for the argument to hold; we are concerned only with the periods in question.