Critical Reasoning

Which of the following most logically completes the passage below?

Heavy rains during Centralia’s corn planting season prevented some farmers there from planting corn. It is now the planting season for soybeans, another of Centralia’s principal crops, and those fields originally intended for corn are dry enough for planting. Nonetheless, even though soybean prices are unusually high at present, the farmers will leave most of these fields empty rather than plant them with soybeans, since ________.

A. the extensive rains have led to an increase in the price of corn
B. some Centralian farmers anticipate serious financial losses due to the extremely wet spring planting season
C. chemicals that were used to prepare the fields for corn planting would stunt the growth of soybeans
D. the majority of Centralia’s corn farmers were able to plant corn as they had intended, despite the wet planting season
E. many Centralian farmers grow both corn and soybeans


OA-C ; IMO A
Isn’t C out of scope?

Process of elimination is usually the best approach with these types of questions, and they will often try to trick the test taker by using answers that potentially elicit a reaction or touch an emotion (not so much in this case however). C is the correct answer, since it is a logical stem from the context. Answer A departs logically from the passage since the price of corn should have no bearing on whether or not they can sell soybeans. B makes no logical sense at all, since the farmers in theory could offset losses by planting soybeans. Answer D does not make sense because the preceeding sentence is talking about planting soybeans, not corn. And the final choice is not correct because it would make no sense to suggest planting soybeans in the passage if the farmers did not do so (in other words, there would be redundancy in explaining that farmers plant both crops since it is inferred already in the preceeding sentences). Hope this helps.

agree with bryan...
eliminate "a" as the farmers can't grow corn.even if their prices have increased....
rest of the options vig. b,d,e can be eliminated easily..

Hi gmat 740,

Answer is C

How I approached this problem is:

1. Identify the type of question. In this case, it is a strengthen/assumption question wherein I need to provide a new premise/ evidence to support my conclusion

2. Identify the conclusion. Here the conclusion is that farmers will not plant soyabean.

3. Now look for any new information in the answer choice that will support/strengthen my conclusion.

Start eliminating the answer choices by assigning the following
a. Strengthens
b. Weakens
c. Neutral
d. Out of scope


The reasons for eliminating the answer choices in this qs is aptly explained by bryantmichaels above.

Hope it helps!!!

Cheers!!!
Turbo Jet

Will go with C