Critical Reasoning

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.

perhaps C...

IMO: C

IMO : C
This is the only option which talks against blend

i'll go out on a limb here..i believe it is A because the answer option essentially says that if someone else blended more than 5 whiskies, then it could essentially beat MacDuff.

i'm not sure about my answer, i too was choosing between A and C. i chose not to do C since i felt being able to taste individual components didn't really apply to a blended whisky, in addition to the fact that the part about more than five whiskies sounded out of scope to me.

again, i'm on a limb here, i could easily be wrong. OA?

EDIT -

Ah well, I just notice "no fewer" in the stimulus, so I guess A is wrong.

What about D?

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

OA is D. It says " If MacDuff's is only as fine as average quality of its ingredients, then some of its component whiskies must be as fine or finer than Macduff's"

Can someone help explaining how to tackle this one? I myself picked C and E.

Thanks

option C is tempting but it sounds a little too extreme in its wording "...in a blended whisky is a waste..."

option D looks much better - A blended whiskey is as fine as the average quality of its components - and it stays within scope.

premise 1> finest whiskeys come from scotland
premise 2> macduff blends 5 of scotlands finest whiskeys
premise 3> quality of blended whiskey derives from quality of its components

conclusion>macduff must be the finest

now anything that tells us that the quality of macduff is not neccesarily the best in the world will weaken the conclusion. D does this very tactfully telling us that few components of macduff will be of higher quality and few will be of lower quality (or exactly the same!!) so it wins hands down!


lets look at the loser choices now-:
A. The more single-malt whiskies involved in the batch of blended whisky, the finer the quality of whisky. >>> fine. this might me true. but we have nothing to support that infact there IS some whiskey that is made up of more than 5 components

B..we are hardly concerned with the no of years the competitors are in the market

C. Including more than five single-malt whiskies in a blended whisky is a waste, because no one can taste that many component flavors.....our conclusion is that macduff is the finest whiskey. this statement does not attack our conclusion from any end. it doesnt tell us anything about the quality of whiskeys.

E. The concept of "finest" in a whisky is a subjective measure that cannot be quantified in a statistically valid way.....this was surely a close contender, but then again, it does not particularly tell us why macduff cannot be the finest whiskey. on close reading this actually looks out of scope as it will be attacking the very premise...

I feel the answer will be C