vishnuchaithanya wrote:The people of Olama Village share a religious tradition, which includes the tenet that no eggs be consumed that have been locally produced. If the people are to maintain their religious traditions, then they may not prepare dishes for the upcoming festival using locally produced eggs.

Which of the following, if true, most undermines the conclusion stated in the passage?

A. Many of the village youths choose to ignore the strictest tenets of religious tradition.

B. Most of the eggs in the local market were imported from overseas.

C. Most of the dishes for the upcoming festival will feature grains and vegetables, rather than animal products.

D. The local egg farmers have struggled with a recent bird flu, and have been forced to purchase new livestock at the regional market.

E. For the upcoming festival, prepared dishes are to be used as shrine ornaments and will be discarded when the festival has finished.

The OA is ...

...E

Premise: cannot consume local eggs.

Conclusion: can't produce dishes for the festival with local eggs.

Before going for the answer choices, THINK. What could make this go wrong? It seems rock solid: can't consume local eggs, so don't use them in dishes for the festival. To weaken this we need to find a way that we CAN make dishes for the festival from local eggs without violating the sacred traditions in the premise. The only way that will happen is if....the dishes with the local eggs are NOT CONSUMED, so the traditions remain intact.

Once you know what you're looking for, E is an easy pick.

@Geva

The premise says 'locally PRODUCED eggs'....
so the conclusion is 'cannot consume locally PRODUCED eggs'..

Option B says that most of the eggs were imported which means that they are not locally produced.

Why isn't option B correct?

Hi Geva,
How did you rule out B and C.

dhonu121 wrote:Hi Geva,
How did you rule out B and C.

The simple truth is that I ruled out B and C because I was looking for for something that said what E says, and they weren't it. If you have an idea of what you're looking for before you go to the answer choice, the answer choices are easy to eliminate. If you don't, they're a nightmare of semi-relevants and possibles.

In detail: B is eliminated because it is irrelevant - most of the eggs are imported, but that doesn't weaken the conclusion that we should not make dishes from eggs that are produced locally. B "Maybe" weakens the conclusion that dishes made of eggs should not be consumed at all - as it offers the possibility that some dishes were made from imported eggs. But the argument's conclusion specifically focuses on dishes made from eggs produced locally, so the imported eggs are irrelevant.

C does approximately the same thing. If the argument's conclusion were that dishes prepared for the festival should not be eaten at all, then C would weaken - it offers the possibility that some dishes are not made of eggs (local or imported). But that is not the conclusion we want to weaken - we want to weaken the conclusion that we should not make dishes made of locally produced eggs.