Critical Reasoning

Recent research has suggested that best-selling authors gradually lose their ability to excite readers with age. This suggestion is based on the fact that on average, such writers produce the majority of their best-selling works before the age of fifty. However, there is also data showing that authors who began their writing career later in life created more of their best-selling works after the age of fifty. This may indicate that lack of innovation and creativity is not necessarily a product of age, but rather a result of creative exhaustion following too many years of writing.

In the argument given, the two portions in boldface play which of the following roles?

A. The first contains evidence which contradicts the position favored by the argument; the second is that position.
B. The first is evidence which supports an explanation that the argument rules out; the second is another explanation dismissed by the argument.
C. The first lends credibility to the position that the argument favors; the second describes that position.
D. The first is evidence which supports an explanation that the argument rules out; the second is that explanation.
E. The first is the claim whose validity is discussed in the argument; the second is evidence supporting that claim.

OA C

Source: Economist GMAT