The Drug Enforcement Agency's efforts to block illegal

Question

The Drug Enforcement Agency's efforts to block illegal trafficking of methamphetamine across the Mexican border were a failure in 2012. If the agency's efforts had been successful, the wholesale price of methamphetamine would not have dropped by more than 50% in 2012.

The argument in the passage depends on which of the following assumptions?

A The supply of methamphetamine dropped substantially in 2012.

B The price paid for most methamphetamine by the average consumer did not drop substantially in 2012.

C Domestic production of methamphetamine increased at a higher rate than did the entry of the drug into the country.

D The wholesale price of methamphetamine increased substantially in 2012.

E A drop in demand for methamphetamine in 2012 was not the sole cause of the drop in its wholesale price.

I marked the answer as C, since the argument says that the drop in price will not be more than 50% even if the illegal trade is blocked and I thought that may be it is the domestic production that is making this happen.
Can someone explain it?

Thanks!

tuanquang269 · Accepted Answer

A The supply of methamphetamine dropped substantially in 2012.  => We do not need the negate technique. If the supply of M dropped in 2012, the price of M will increase. So, this choice is wrong. 
B The price paid for most methamphetamine by the average consumer DROPPED substantially in 2012 (NEGATED)  => whether or not the average price drop does not impact substantially the general price.  
C Domestic production of methamphetamine increased at a higher rate than did the entry of the drug into the country.  => irrelevant 
D The wholesale price of methamphetamine increased substantially in 2012.  => irrelevant 
E A drop in demand for methamphetamine in 2012 was the sole cause of the drop in its wholesale price. (negated)  => when the illegal drugs are blocked, the demand (in comparison with the supply) increase => the wholesale price of drugs increase (hypothesized) => corrupted with the argument. Therefore, choice E is the correct one.

monirjewel · Answer

Awesome explanation...thank u very much. ...

Rock750 · Answer

Negating E means that the drop in methamphetamine's wholesale price was not due to the failure of Agency's effort but to the drop in demand for it in 2012.

Hence, the conclusion falls apart and E is the assumption we are looking for.

Hope that helps !

GMATPill · Answer

The  original source of the question  is actually from GMATPill

(C) is not correct because it's not relevant. Domestic production increasing does not affect our argument.

What is our argument? That efforts to stop drug trafficking were unsuccessful.

Does (C) domestic production increasing affect whether or not efforts to stop drug imports are successful or not successful?
No. Not related. THe only possible way for (C) to affect the argument is if it mentions that domestic production increased so much that it resulted in fewer drugs being imported -- in which case this kind of says that efforts to stop drug trafficking were successful (weakening conclusion). However, no mention of the link to "fewer drugs being imported" is referenced in answer choice (C).

Answer (C) is not relevant.

Archit143 · Answer

I will say the defender model of assumption techniques is used at its best in the argument.......
Answer for sure is E.

Consider kudos If my post helps!!

Archit

pqhai · Answer

Very classic case of   DEFENDER ASSUMPTION   (Power Score CR Bible)

Premise: because of illegal trafficking of medicines, so the price of the medicine drop 50%. 
Conclusion: illegal trafficking is the cause of prices drop.

Assumption: there's   no other reasons   that make the price of the medicine drop.

E clearly says the assumption.

Hope it helps.

btg9788 · Answer

This is a classic GMAT type question which poses 2 parallel occurrences next to each other. It is trying to find the underlying assumption about the change in A causing change in B. So, one of the choices has to indicate that drop in price of methamphetamine and the trafficking part are related to each other.

A The supply of methamphetamine dropped substantially in 2012.
This option might help to explain where the extra supply of methamphetamine came from. But it does not talk about pricing.

B The price paid for most methamphetamine by the average consumer did not drop substantially in 2012.
This option is irrelevant because we are dealing with wholesale prices and not consumer prices. Anyhow, it says that average price remained the same. This could be answer to a "WEAKEN" question.

C Domestic production of methamphetamine increased at a higher rate than did the entry of the drug into the country.
It is comparing rate of increase of domestic production to the rate of entry of drug. But, we donot know about pricing. If production increased by 0.1 % and the inflow increased by 0.001% then pricing may or may not be affected at all.

D The wholesale price of methamphetamine increased substantially in 2012.
This is a "WEAKENER" but does not correlate trafficking + wholesale price. It is actually stating the opposite of what the premise is.

E A drop in demand for methamphetamine in 2012 was not the sole cause of the drop in its wholesale price.
A drop in demand could be a possibility here. Demand v/s Price tells that price can get affected -vely if the demand goes down. The option indirectly suggests that some thing other than the drop in demand was responsible for causing the price to drop. This throws open the possibility of a multitude of reasons. One of them could be drug trafficking. :lol:

It is an oblique reference to a possibility. So, its not a clear cut answer, but still IMO E.

It is an oblique reference to a possibility. So, its not a clear cut answer, but still IMO E.

brs1cob · Answer

E is the correct answer.

here we need to conclude that EA's effort was not successful. so we need something that can support this conclusion.

option E says drop in demand for methamphetamine was not the only reason for the drop in its wholesale price, it means there is some other factor , which is responsible and i.e. EA's effort in curbing illegal trafficking.

on negation of option E, conclusion doesn't hold

VerbalBot · Answer

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The Drug Enforcement Agency's efforts to block illegal

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