While cooking pasta, most Italian chefs add some cooking oil.

Official Explanation

Answer: B

There could be two ways of weakening the argument—either show some other benefit of adding oil or show that the intended benefit mentioned in the argument could not have been the reason for adding oil. B does this by stating that since the pasta never comes in contact with the oil, the purpose of adding oil could not be to prevent the pasta from sticking to the utensils.

(A) This discounts the possibility that taste could be a reason for adding oil, so then the reason could still be to prevent the pasta from sticking to the utensils.

(B) The correct answer.

(C) The question is why do the chefs who use cooking oil while cooking pasta do so.

(D) This does not explain the need for adding cooking oil.

(E) Again this option does not discount the possibility of the chefs adding olive oil to prevent the pasta from sticking.