V32-18

Question

Bacterial damage in most wheat-growing regions in Serbia has caused a major increase in the price of wheat in the Serbian market. On the other hand, the price of rice has remained stable for a long time. This has led many Serbian rice farmers to decide to grow wheat instead, to take advantage of the high prices in the Serbian agro-market and increase their income, at least in the next few years.
 
Which of the following, if true, would most seriously weaken the plan's chances for success?

A. The cost of farming rice has increased significantly over the last few years, and analysts claim that it will only go up in the coming years. 
B. In the last few years, the demand for wheat or wheat products has not risen sharply. 
C. Research shows that the bacteria is immune to pesticides and can be transmitted from one farming area to another very quickly.
D. The rice farmers who are planning to shift to wheat farming will not be able to compensate for the current deficit in wheat supply with their wheat production. 
E. The traits of the bacteria that seem to have attacked the wheat farms in Serbia have no effect on the rice plantations.

Bunuel · Answer

Official Solution:

Bacterial damage in most wheat-growing regions in Serbia has caused a major increase in the price of wheat in the Serbian market. On the other hand, the price of rice has remained stable for a long time. This has led many Serbian rice farmers to decide to grow wheat instead, to take advantage of the high prices in the Serbian agro-market and increase their income, at least in the next few years.
 
Which of the following, if true, would most seriously weaken the plan's chances for success?

A. The cost of farming rice has increased significantly over the last few years, and analysts claim that it will only go up in the coming years. 
B. In the last few years, the demand for wheat or wheat products has not risen sharply. 
C. Research shows that the bacteria is immune to pesticides and can be transmitted from one farming area to another very quickly.
D. The rice farmers who are planning to shift to wheat farming will not be able to compensate for the current deficit in wheat supply with their wheat production. 
E. The traits of the bacteria that seem to have attacked the wheat farms in Serbia have no effect on the rice plantations.

Premise:  Wheat prices have risen because of shortage in supply.
 
 Conclusions:  Rice farmers who shift to wheat farming will gain from the high prices for wheat.
 
The correct option would present a possibility that might cause the plan (to make money from the high prices) to fail, i.e. the new wheat farmers would not be able to take advantage of the high price.
 
A. This option gives all the more reason for a rice farmer to shift to wheat farming and hence is strengthening the plan of the rice farmers deciding to shift to wheat farming.
 
B. the current situation is as follows: a deficit in supply has caused the price of wheat to rise significantly. If a farmer can grow wheat, they can sell it at a much higher price than usual. This price discrepancy is not due to increase in demand but decrease in supply. Answer choice B) does not actually tell us anything new - we already knew from the question that the supply was the culprit. Even with the previous level of demand, there is a serious shortage. While it would be nice to also have an increase in Demand (this would make it even more profitable), we do not need increase in demand for the plan to succeed as lots of wheat farms have been knocked out off line and as the question says, at least for the next few years there is an expectation that the wheat shortages will persist. Thus telling us that there is no increase in demand, does not weaken the plan in any way, it just does not make it stronger. 
 
 C. CORRECT.  This option presents a possibility that might cause the plan of the new wheat farmers to fail. Since the bacteria can be transmitted to new farming areas and are immune to pesticides, the new wheat farmers’ crop may also be damaged and hence their plan for making money would not be successful - even though the price in the market rises, there would not be wheat to supply because of the bacterial damage.
 
D. This option strengthens the plan - after the new wheat farmers start supplying to the market, the demand would still be higher than the supply. Thus the price will continue to remain high, thereby making the plan (to make money from the high prices) of these farmers who shifted from rice to wheat successful.
 
E. This option assures the farmers who remain in rice farming of continued revenues, but this option has no relevance to the farmers who plan to shift to wheat farming. The correct option must present a possibility that might cause the plan of the new wheat farmers (to make money from the high prices) to fail.

Answer: C

Bunuel · Answer

The question or/and solution has been revised and edited. Thank you  sayantanc2k  !!!

ZahraB · Answer

I think this the explanation isn't clear enough, please elaborate. Option B does not talk about price trend. Could you please clarify why option B is not an answer? If demand of wheat is not increasing and many suppliers enter the market, would it not decrease the price (Supply high, supply deficit gap narrows and hence reduced the price). Please elaborate why B is not the right answer.

arnavghatage · Answer

Bunuel

I have some doubts about the answer - If option C is true then they their is an equal chance of the bacteria affecting the rice farms as well right? So growing wheat instead of rice is not a bad plan.

I went with E - If the bacteria has not effect on the rice farms, there is a high chance that if they grow wheat, their farm will be affected.

bb · Answer

Hi. There is only 1 plan in the question and that is to switch rice farms to growing wheat. 
Our goal is to say why it will fail based on the answer choices provided and information we know.

We are told that the decision to grow wheat has been made. There is no changing that decision. They are growing wheat. 
We are  not asked  to evaluate anything else or to suggest which plan of action may be better, just to weaken the suggested plan/course of action. Thus saying that sticking with rice is better than wheat is not really an argument.

If you choose E), in that case you are relying on the assumption that "if they grow wheat, there is a chance the farms will be affected by the virus" whereas C) tells us that exactly that information. So C) is a better and more complete answer since to make E work, you need C, since E) tells us nothing about the failure of the plan, only immunity/success of the rice-growing plan.

bb · Answer

Thank you for the question. I have elaborated the explanation for option B.

Charlotte825 · Answer

Hi!

I chose option E, since the goal is to increase their income by planting wheat. If their rice crops haven’t been affected by the bacteria, it’s highly plausible the bacteria is present but simply hasn’t impacted the rice. However, if they switch to wheat—assuming they're in a region where wheat is commonly grown ( as they want to grow weed)—the bacteria is most likely to affect the wheat as it has in the rest of the regions. If the wheat becomes infected (which is likely as the probability is big as most of the wheat regions are affected and they’re unable to sell it, their plan to generate higher income by switching to wheat is likely to fail.

bb · Answer

Hi. I like your thinking! However, you are massaging answer choice E to fit in a bit of a round-about way. The assumptions and weaken/strengthen tend not to be more direct and not making multiple reasoning stops/connections.

Which of the following, if true, would most seriously weaken the plan's chances for success?

C) Research shows that the bacteria is immune to pesticides and can be transmitted from one farming area to another very quickly.
E) The traits of the bacteria that seem to have attacked the wheat farms in Serbia have no effect on the rice plantations.

This suggests rice is not at risk, which doesn't weaken the plan—if anything, it strengthens the status quo (rice farming is safe), but doesn’t attack the viability of wheat farming directly. 
 The comment somewhat tries to twist E) to imply that the bacteria may affect wheat everywhere, which is closer to what Option C actually says.

Thus C is the most serious weakener

Confusion · Answer

I attempted this on a test and was left with options C & D. I chose D since in its current form the option made me feel - the farmers will not be able to help impact the deficit in the market - which made me think by the time they produce the supply will go back to normal which is why I chose D. 
I see the explanation reads opposite that the deficit would continue and in that angle C remain non-eliminated. But I think option D can be written better.

hr1212 · Answer

Hi  Confusion ,

I think the options are neatly written and you may have wandered into what ifs scenarios. The idea here is to focus on why the farmers shouldn’t switch to wheat production which could be profitable for them. Option D argues that even this level of production would not be sufficient to meet the demand. But farmers really don’t care if their supply will address the full demand. Also time frame to harvest is out of scope for this discussion. The plan is advantageous as long as production meets the partial demand in question and results in profitability. Hence, D is in a way supporting the plan rather than weakening it.

V32-18

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