Critical Reasoning

Misrile, a tiny nation with extreme aridity, has surprised global agricultural community by developing a thriving citrus fruit industry. By using the nation's scarce supply of fresh water with maximum efficiency, farmers did the unthinkable. However, as the water demands of Misrile's growing population increases, the nation will inevitably need to import water from neighboring countries in order to maintain a thriving citrus fruit industry.
Which of the following is an assumption upon with the conclusion is based?
A. As water supplies in Misrile become tighter, the export price of its citrus fruits will increase, thereby justifying the expenditure of importing water.
B. Misrile cannot substantially increase its domestic supply of water by opening new desalinization plants on its coasts.
C. Neighboring nations are equally arid and will not export water to Misrile at a reasonable cost.
D. The people of Misrile can decrease the need for importing water by becoming more efficient in their use of water.
E. The best economic use of Misrile's land and scarce water supplies is to grow citrus fruits


I went with E but some of the user responses on the forum has been B

Source: another gmat forum


Guys/gals please chip in your thoughts.

Regards,
CR

the conclusion

However, as the water demands of Misrile's growing population increases, the nation will inevitably need to import water from neighboring countries in order to maintain a thriving citrus fruit industry.

(in brief) that Misrile has to import water ..
For assumption questions..try to weaken the argument.

Following are weaken
a) What if there is abundant untapped water resource in Misrile?

b) May be the people will become more responsible and start conserving water thereby not needing to import more.

c) may be the desalination plants are succesful in extracting the water from salt water from the coasts of Misrile..

As u notice that when you negate these weakening points, your assumptions begin revealing...

c) There is no way that desalination plants can be successful in extracting water from salt water from the coasts of misrile
This forms the Assumption ANSWER -- B.


My $0.02.

Matterover, I think u may be right. I may have missed the conclusion focusiing on the Citrus part rather than the water part.

Thanks buddy!

Hopefully others post their thought too.

Regards,
Cramya

IMO E
because the conclusion use such extreme wordings as "the nation will inevitably need to import water in order to maintain industry" - I think that it means there is no way to abandone the fruit industry and distribute water among population, thus population depends on citrus industry at the most. Therefore, there is no way of better economic use of land and water supply - as E states

E. The best economic use of Misrile's land and scarce water supplies is to grow citrus fruits

E is too extreme.

how can we know what is the best use of its land..

[/b]

IMO, its E.

I think B is a weak choice as it assumes that the country has a coast (It may even be land locked, the passage only states that it has neigbors)

Clear B

The argument assumes there aren't any other ways than importing water to meet the demand.

Clear E

Checked with Ian also.

OA is B

The reson being:

Conclusion : The nation will inevitably need to import water from neighboring countries

B is the best answer. In GMAT hence they say best. E may be the next in line I guess....

Thanks All.

Regards,
CR

Answer is clarly E

I believe the answer should be E