Critical Reasoning

In Teruvia, the quantity of rice produced per year is currently just large enough to satisfy domestic demand. Teruvia's total rice acreage will not be expanded in the foreseeable future, nor will rice yields per acre increase appreciably. Teruvia's population, however, will be increasing significantly for years to come. Clearly, therefore, Teruvia will soon have to begin importing rice.

Which of the following is an assumption on which the argument depends?

A.No pronounced trend of decreasing per capita demand for rice is imminent in Teruvia.

B.Not all of the acreage in Teruvia currently planted with rice is well suited to the cultivation of rice.

C.None of the strains of rice grown in Teruvia are exceptionally high-yielding.

D.There are no populated regions in Teruvia in which the population will not increase.

E.There are no major crops other than rice for which domestic production and domestic demand are currently in balance in Teruvia.

OA: A

can someone explain this one?

I only narrowed down to A, C and E.

thank u so much!

Mitch, I am not sure why E can't be eliminated.

There are no major crops other than rice for which domestic production and domestic demand are currently in balance in Teruvia.

kaiweiweiwei wrote:Mitch, I am not sure why E can't be eliminated.

There are no major crops other than rice for which domestic production and domestic demand are currently in balance in Teruvia.

The passage itself is only concerned about rice and its demand to address the population. E would be out of scope since the passage does not consider any other crop for its conclusion. This is only related to rice. Even if they had other major crops which are in balance how would that affect the demand on rice? there is no statement to assume that other crops can "pitch in" for the shortage of rice in the neat future.

I chose A by POE. A and E are close but the above reasoning made me choose A over E ...

I hope I have addressed you doubt.

kaiweiweiwei wrote:Mitch, I am not sure why E can't be eliminated.

There are no major crops other than rice for which domestic production and domestic demand are currently in balance in Teruvia.

The best rule for assumptions is to negate the given options and see whether the argument falls apart.

Negate E and you get: rice is NOT the only crop available for which supply&demand is balanced.
This is out of scope. We are not interested in what happens to other crops. To the extreme, this also strengthens the argument because if rice supply&demand is balanced, then the author's assertion that the production shortage and population increase will make Teruvia import rice will be true.

I'll give you an example of a simple assumption question:
My poodle is intelligent because all dogs are intelligent

What did we assume in the above for the argument to hold? We assumed that poodles are dogs. If poodles were not dogs, then the argument that "my poodle is intelligent" falls apart.