Critical Reasoning

The United States is not usually thought of as a nation of parakeet lovers. Yet in a census of parakeet owners in selected comparable countries, the United States ranked second, with eleven parakeet owners per hundred people. The conclusion can be drawn from this that people in the United States are more likely to own parakeets than are people in most other countries.

Knowledge of which of the following would be most useful in judging the accuracy of the conclusion above?

A: The number of parakeets in the United States
B: The number of parakeet owners in the United States
C: The number of parakeet owners per hundred people in the cry that ranked first in the census
D: The number of parakeet owners in the United States compared to the numbers of owners of other pet birds in the United States
E: The numbers of parakeet owners per hundred people in the countries not included in the census

OA: E


[spoiler]Can anyone please explain why the answer is E? Is it because the conclusion is comparing the people in US against thse in other countries? [/spoiler]

I too selected E.
Reason: based on the census,where United States is second in ranking,the conclusion was made that parakeet lovers are more per hundred in US.Now if other country which was not included in the census had more parakeet lovers per 100 than US it would have surely changed the ranking and conclusion.
So, option E.

Please correct me if i am wrong.

Thanks and regards,
Saurabh.

I agree with the above explanation. E is the correct option just because the stimulus talks about "Selected" countires and if the countries that were not included are included in the census, then there could be a shift in the ranking.