During the past three years of its present administration, Country M's

Question

During the past three years of its present administration, Country M's foreign trade account shows a surplus of three million U.S. dollars. The foreign trade account weighs the value of products exported against the value of products imported. A surplus shows a greater value of exports than imports. Since during the previous administration of Country M the foreign trade account showed an average surplus of 4.5 million U.S. dollars, we can safely conclude the policies of Country M's present administration have led to fewer exports.

Which of the following, if true, would most weaken the argument above?

A. Over the last three years Country M's economy has grown steadily.
B. Domestic sale of products made in Country M has risen steadily over the last three years.
C. The present administration of Country M has raised the tariffs on some imported goods.
D. The value per item of Country M's imports has risen gradually over the last three years.
E. In the past three years, the value of Country M's imports has tripled.

PyjamaScientist · Answer

Surplus is defined as the difference between Exports and Imports.
  
Thus,  Surplus = Exports - Imports . Since the surplus has decreased in past few years, it is claimed that Exports must have lowered. What if the Exports remained the same or even increased, but the second part of the equation, that is imports' contribution, increased way more to decrease the difference between Exports and Imports?

Option (E) , hits right on that fallacy. If the value of Country M's imports has tripled then you can not confidently say that the "Exports" must have decreased. Maybe the imports alone caused the surplus too fall and exports were as they were before.
Correct choice.

Kiara229 · Answer

I was struggling between D and E. Can you explain the flaw in D? If Surplus = Export - Import and the value per imported item increased, it would mean the value of the imports by same amount would've increased without the exports (because they are not mentioned) to drop: Which would result in the decrease of the surplus.

Thanks!

PyjamaScientist · Answer

Hi  Kiara229 ,
You make a valid point. But, the thing that makes (D) inferior to  (E)  is the term, " value per item " in (D).  Value per item  does not tell you much about the   increase or decrease in the value of total imports , something that  (E)  does clearly.
To expound further:
Say the  import   three years before was valued at $100, and say, there were 100 items imported. So, the value per item would be $1 per item. After three years, suppose the number of items decreased to a mere 10 items, but their price has increased from $1 per item to $10 per item. This would again make the total import value $100 dollars only. So, you see, there's  no net change  in the import value although the price per item has increased by 10 times. So, just by saying that the price per item has increased gradually, you can not really weaken the conclusion as much as  tripled imports  in (E) does. (E) doesn't leave that room of speculation whether the total imports value increased with respect to the increase in price per item, thus, it is a superior choice than (D) is.

In CR, you would often get down to two choices that might both make some sense to the question asked, but, you have to choose the one that makes the  most   sense. Or with respect to "weaken" type questions- Choose the option that hits the conclusion most negatively.

Hope it helps.

VerbalBot · Answer

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During the past three years of its present administration, Country M's

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