The world's finest single-malt whiskies come from the highland of

Question

The world's finest single-malt whiskies come from the highland of Scotland. If the quality of the blended whisky derives from the quality of its component ingredients, then MacDuff's whisky must be the finest whisky in the world, because it blends no fewer than five Scotland's finest single-malt whiskies.

The argument above could be seriously weaken if which of the followin were true?

(A) The more single-malt whiskies involved in the batch of blended whisky, the finer the quality of whisky.

(B) Whereas many of MacDuff's competitors have been in industry for decades or even century, the MacDuff brand was created within the last decade by marketing committee.

(C) Including more than five single-malt whiskies in a blended whisky is a waste, because no one can taste that many component flavors.

(D) A blended whisky is as fine as the average quality of its components.

(E) The concept of "finest" in a whisky is a subjective measure that cannot be quantified in a statistically valid way.

CounterSniper · Answer

The conclusion is

MacDuff's whisky must be the finest whisky in the world

(A) The more single-malt whiskies involved in the batch of blended whisky, the finer the quality of whisky.
--Strengthens the conclusion
--Out

(B) Whereas many of MacDuff's competitors have been in industry for decades or even century, the MacDuff brand was created within the last decade by marketing committee.
--Has nothing to do with single malt and blending 
--Out

(C) Including more than five single-malt whiskies in a blended whisky is a waste, because no one can taste that many component flavors.
---right , but  no fewer than five Scotland's finest single-malt  means >=5 
it means the blended malt can have 5 single malt whiskies 
--Out

(D) A blended whisky is as fine as the average quality of its components.
---This means that either the blended one's quality is same or inferior
if all say 10 ingredients have a value of 10 , the value of blended whiskey will be 10
if any one of the ingredient has a lower value the average will go down .
--Should be the answer

(E) The concept of "finest" in a whisky is a subjective measure that cannot be quantified in a statistically valid way
--May be true , but it doesn't weaken the conclusion
--Out

D !!

soleimanian · Answer

Pure Weighted Average Question. 
The argument says that the finest come from Scotland. What about other 4 components? they might have the lowest quality in the world.

I go with D
(D) A blended whisky is as fine as the average quality of its components.

bbn2 · Answer

I am a bit skeptical on this question. D has to assume that the quality of the 5+ whiskies become worse AND that there are companies that mix less than 5 whiskies than MacDuff. This seems like a lot of assumptions to make to weaken the question.

By the same token, I chose A because it states that the more whiskies blended, the finer the quality. I assumed that there are companies that mixes more whiskies together than MacDuff, which will weaken the author's claim that MacDuff is the finest in the world...

I am likely overthinking this question... thoughts?

pbad · Answer

GMATNinja  Can you please help in answering this question? I believe OA D is not the correct answer.

JatinBhandari1 · Answer

Hope you are doing well. Let’s try to solve this question
The question asks to weaken the argument.
The next step is to deconstruct it
The conclusion provided in the argument is that MacDuff’s whisky is the finest whisky in the world and the premise provided for the same is it blends no fewer than five Scotland’s finest single malt whiskies.
The predicted answer should basically suggest that mixing finest single malt whiskies do not contribute to making the quality of whiskey better.
Next step is to do Process of Elimination
A- Strengthens the argument
B- Out of scope
C- Out of scope as the argument suggests no fewer than five.
D- Correct 
E- Does not damage the claim
Hope it helps.
Consistency is the key.
Keep striving hard.
PythaGURUS Faculty Team

arya251294 · Answer

Good question,
the trick lies in focusing on the keyword "no fewer than"
Let us assume that MD uses 10 ingredients to prepare a blend.
Now argument says that MD uses no fewer than five Scotland's finest single-malt whiskies. (in line with our assumption that MD has prepared this whiskey with 10 ingredients out of which 5 are the finest single-malt whiskies)

Now, say the rating of ingredients is given from 1-10
We see that 5 ingredients are the finest ones (say with a score 10)
but let's say that rest of the 5 ingredients are the worst (with a score of say only 1)

option D attacks the argument by telling that the average quality of these ingredients tells us that these are in fact not good (10+10+10+10+10+1+1+1+1+1)/10
which is - 5.5

and it is possible that some other company is using all ten ingredients of finest quality(all 10 with score 10)
therefore that company might give us the finest whiskey and not MD.

VerbalBot · Answer

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The world's finest single-malt whiskies come from the highland of

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