Solutions
Get detailed explanations to advanced GMAT questions.
Question
Kernland imposes a high tariff on the export of unprocessed cashew nuts in order to ensure that the nuts are sold to domestic processing plants. If the tariff were lifted and unprocessed cashews were sold at world market prices, more farmers could profit by growing cashews. However, since all the processing plants are in urban areas, removing the tariff would seriously hamper the government’s effort to reduce urban unemployment over the next five years.
Which of the following, if true, most seriously weakens the argument?
Option A:
Some of the by-products of processing cashews are used for manufacturing paints and plastics.
Option B:
Other countries in which cashews are processed subsidize their processing plants.
Option C:
More people in Kernland are engaged in farming cashews than in processing them.
Option D:
Buying unprocessed cashews at lower than world market prices enables cashew processors in Kernland to sell processed nuts at competitive prices.
Option E:
A lack of profitable crops is driving an increasing number of small farmers in Kernland off their land and into the cities.
Difficulty Level
HardSolution
Option E is the right answer.
Option Analysis
Question type: Weakens the argument.
Summary of the argument: The argument concludes by saying that removing the tariff would seriously hamper the government’s effort to reduce unemployment. Since this is a weaken question we now need to find an answer choice that says this will not hamper the government’s effort to reduce unemployment.
A) Doesn’t affect the argument.
B) No relationship to unemployment.
C) This again doesn’t relate the option to urban unemployment.
D) This option talks about prices and nothing about unemployment.
E) Correct Answer
Related Questions
- FastMart, a convenience store chain, is planning to add pancake syrup to the items it sells..
- A recent review of pay scales indicates that CEO’s now earn an average of 419 times more pay than blue-collar workers, compared to a ratio of 42 times in 1980.
- A New York City ordinance of 1897 regulated the use of bicycles, mandated a maximum speed…
- At an orientation meeting, the travelers were told that a visa, a landing card, and evidence of inoculation…
- Whales originated in the freshwater lakes and rivers of ancient Asia about sixty million years ago…