The quality of unrefined olive oil is not actually defined

Hi Experts,

I have a doubt on the phrase "The quality of unrefined olive oil is not actually defined in terms of acidity, yet extensive tests have shown that the less free oleic acid an unrefined olive oil contains per liter, the higher its quality."

They seem to be contradictory.

I guess "be defined" is used for the exact relationship, but the phrase " the less ... , the higher" indicate the rightly relationship; however, I'm not so sure whether I'm correct?

Please help me clarify this.
Thank you.

Hi Can you please help me explain why choice D is wrong? In passage it is mentioned that The proportion of free oelic acid in olive oil isAccuratemeasure of the Olive Oil acidity which means oelic acid is the only acid it contains because its proportion is the accurate measure of the acidity of the olive oil. Please help me where am I wrong here?

Hi IanStewart
Could you please help with this question?

(C) is the best among other answer choice, but I have some doubt about it.



(B) is wrong because there would be other aspects of olive oil that determine the quality of olive oil.



Yet, If we use the same reasoning for (C), (C) cannot be supported from the passage. In other words, even if an unrefined olive oil is intermediate in acidity between two other unrefined olive oils, there would be other aspects that are better that those of other olive oils and that can determine the quality of olive oil.

Could you please explain how (C) is correct?

Thank you very much beforehand!

I'm having a hard time trying to understand why option b is wrong. I see that the acidity level is not the only factor that determines the unrefined olive oils' quality, and I don't think that statement b is implying that.

I feel like:
"The quality of an unrefined olive oil can be determined only by accurately measuring its acidity."

is different from:
"The quality of an unrefined olive oil can only be determined by accurately measuring its acidity."

I think the first statement (option b) merely implies that you cannot determine the unrefined olive oils' quality without accurately measuring their acidity level, whereas the second statement implies that the only factor determining the unrefined olive oils' quality is their acidity level.

¿Am I missing something?

So I correctly chose C) but I am not content with this answer.

The passage says that " less free oleic acid an unrefined olive oil contains per liter, the higher its quality"

based on that, answer choice C) says : "If an unrefined olive oil is intermediate in acidity between two other unrefined olive oils, it will also be intermediate between them in quality."

But thats not a guaranteed result, the passage says that the amount of oleic acid is negatively correlated with oil quality, its just one variable, lots of other variables can also deteriorate or icnrease its quality, for example fat % or etc.

So how C) can be correct answer? one unfiltered oil can have less oleic acid but more other substances that further deteriorate the quality, we are not told that the 3 sample oils are similar on any other aspect excepting oleic acids, nor we are told in the passage that oleic accids are the only variables that define oil quality.

Please help
GMATNinja VeritasKarishma

Dear Karishma, I think the correct answer lacks the additional sentence “all other things equal”. Otherwise that inference is not warranted.

Its like saying the higher someone’s Gmat score is the better her chance of admittion in harvard, that does not warrant that among 3 people the one with average Gmat score holds the average chance of admission, cause there are lots of other variables, Gmat is just another positively correlated variable, In order to make inference about those 3 people we should know how they differ in Gmat and we should know that in all other instances they are equal

VeritasKarishma

GMATNinja

Can you please check my reasoning?

Posted from my mobile device

How to reject A?
A. When an olive oil is refined, the concentration of oleic acid in the oil is reduced.

1. Is not A more like assumption in real scenario? I mean when an unrefined oil is converted to refined oil, concentration of wanted components( such as oleic acid) would increase as unwanted components would be extracted.

We can reject A because:
No relation between acidity of refined and that of unrefined is given, so we can not derive results about concentration from the argument above.

please suggest VeritasKarishma IanStewart

Hi avigutman - wanted to focus on the question stem because i thought the question stem went around in circles. I did get the answer w/o fully understanding the question stem.

Can one infer # 1



I think this inference CAN be made

Can one infer # 2



I think we can make this inference based on the question stem if we connect the dots.

Its another thing all-together that this inference {Lower acidity , quality is better} is not implemented in the real world but i think if we connect the dots in the question stem -- one CAN make this inference .

thoughts ?

Yes, jabhatta2, this sentence:
The proportion of free oleic acid that an olive oil contains is an accurate measure of the oil’s acidity
implies that a Lower free oleic acid [as a proportion of the olive oil] means that acidity is lower.

Yes, jabhatta2, this sentence:
extensive tests have shown that the less free oleic acid an unrefined olive oil contains per liter, the higher its quality
, in combination with your previous inference, implies that lower acidity leads to higher quality.

So overall, we know that lower proportion of free oleic acid that an olive oil contains == the oil’s acidity and we know that lower proportion of free oleic acid that an olive oil contains == higher quality.

thanks avigutman - I was wondering, if you would CONNECT these dots BEFORE going into the answer choices correct ?

Almost like a DS re-phrasing

I ask because I notice one doesnt have to connect the dots (make such inferences) to get to the OA.

The answer choice turned out to be something that didnt need connecting the 3 different sentences..

Yes, jabhatta2, I do connect the dots before going to the answer choices.
And, please take another look: I think you'll find that the OA does in fact require connecting the dots.
I don't think I've ever seen an official inference question that didn't require connecting the dots.

The quality of unrefined olive oil is not actually defined in terms of acidity, yet extensive tests have shown that the less free oleic acid an unrefined olive oil contains per liter, the higher its quality. The proportion of free oleic acid that an olive oil contains is an accurate measure of the oil’s acidity.

If the statements above are all true, which of the following conclusions is best supported by them?

A. When an olive oil is refined, the concentration of oleic acid in the oil is reduced.
We don't know what refining the oil does, the statement doesn't mention that anywhere
B. The quality of an unrefined olive oil can be determined only by accurately measuring its acidity.
We don't know if that is the only thing that is used to measure the acidity
C. If an unrefined olive oil is intermediate in acidity between two other unrefined olive oils, it will also be intermediate between them in quality.
This seems to be correct, let's leave this aside and move to the other options
D. Free oleic acid is the only acid that unrefined olive oil contains.
Again, we don't know if this is true
E. People who judge the quality of unrefined olive oils actually judge those oils by their acidity, which the judges can taste.
We don't know if they are tasting this or they are measuring this


Based on the question this is roughly what I could come up with
Quality of refined oil ≠ acidity
However less oleic acid = better quality oil
Proportion of oleic acid = accurate measure of acidity

@KarishmaB
Ma'am, please explain why is A wrong.
When we refine olive oil, we want to increase the quality. The quality is enhanced if the oelic acid is reduced.

Note that our argument is talking about 'unrefined olive oil.'
We are not given anything about refined olive oil. Nothing is given about why refining is done and how it affects the olive oil. 'Refined' is not equal to 'better quality.' 'Unrefined oil' and 'Refined oil' are actually different products.