GMAT CR - 7 - inference

[rpkarthigan]

Partly because of bad weather, but also partly because some major pepper growers have switched to high-priced cocoa, world production of pepper has been running well below worldwide sales for three years. Pepper is consequently in relatively short supply. The price of pepper has soared in response: it now equals that of cocoa.
Which of the following can be inferred from the passage?
(A) Pepper is a profitable crop only if it is grown on a large scale.
(B) World consumption of pepper has been unusually high for three years.
(C) World production of pepper will return to previous levels once normal weather returns.
(D) Surplus stocks of pepper have been reduced in the past three years.
(E) The profits that the growers of pepper have made in the past three years have been unprecedented.

[kingsingh]

IMO D.

(A) Pepper is a profitable crop only if it is grown on a large scale. - Nowhere mentioned in the argument.

(B) World consumption of pepper has been unusually high for three years. - The situation described in the question can happen even in case of normal consumption levels.

(C) World production of pepper will return to previous levels once normal weather returns. - Weather condition is not the only reason for lower pepper production.

(D) Surplus stocks of pepper have been reduced in the past three years. - "world production of pepper has been running well below worldwide sales for three years" indicates production < sales. If production is less than sales then the extra pepper is coming from the surplus stock. Since the surplus stock was used in past three years, it must have been reduced.

(E) The profits that the growers of pepper have made in the past three years have been unprecedented. - Not supported by the question.

[madhur_ahuja]

Agree with D

[buskool]

Yep D it is.

[sudeep_ar]

D....

[artistocrat]

You can eliminate all but D, and leave it at that, even though its prudent to double check.

[lonelygmatprep]

Nothing in the argument said, there was a surplus before it became short in supply. - This is the Assumption. It is a 'Must be true' type of question according to CR bible. and in that Bible , it is said that you cannot assume anything outside of the premise when solving questions as such.

But D is the answer choice better than rest of the other.

[tarunlakhani]

What is the correct answer??I could scale it down to either E or D

Partly because of bad weather, but also partly because some major pepper growers have switched to high-priced cocoa, world production of pepper has been running well below worldwide sales for three years. Pepper is consequently in relatively short supply. The price of pepper has soared in response: it now equals that of cocoa.
Which of the following can be inferred from the passage?
(A) Pepper is a profitable crop only if it is grown on a large scale. - If it were profitable then why would growers switch to Cocoa production
(B) World consumption of pepper has been unusually high for three years. - Production has fallen. No mention of consumption been high. Cld be cld not be.
(C) World production of pepper will return to previous levels once normal weather returns. - If people keep on shifting to Cocoa production then it is unlikely that production will come to normal level
(D) Surplus stocks of pepper have been reduced in the past three years. - Looks OK. Since, prices are rising the surplus stocks must have also been exhausted.
(E) The profits that the growers of pepper have made in the past three years have been unprecedented. - This is slightly tricky. Prices going up with production in short supply. What happens?? Producers make more money. I think this can also be infered from the passage.

[lonelygmatprep]

tarun,

Since we do not know the production cost and the selling price, we cannot say that E is true.
we just know that pepper is in short supply and the price of pepper has been soared. THAT IS IT.

let's say the production cost went from 2- 10 dollars and the selling price went from 9-11 dollars. That actually contradicts E.

E is just an assumption, not an inference.

[sandeep_chads]

bad weather-> switch to high-priced cocoa, -> pepper sales low
supply low -> price high = price cocoa.

I believe the inference should be that now the producers can switch back to pepper Let's look at the answers

Infer

(A) Pepper is a profitable crop only if it is grown on a large scale. - No reference on large scale. Avoid words like ONLY
(B) World consumption of pepper has been unusually high for three years. - There is no reference of consumption
(C) World production of pepper will return to previous levels once normal weather returns. - Probably, probably not. This answer is the closest to my initial inference. We can infer that if weather is fine, then the producers will switch back to pepper just the way they did for cocoa because it is high priced crop.
(D) Surplus stocks of pepper have been reduced in the past three years. - we know demand is high and supply is low - but we don;t know whether there were surplus stocks of pepper at the very first place so can't comment on it getting reduced
(E) The profits that the growers of pepper have made in the past three years have been unprecedented. - This is too strong a sentence to be true. We cannot say for sure that the producers made UNPRECEDENTED profits. The demand was high and the costs were soaring but also weather was bad so probably they had to build castles to store pepper and that ate into the profits

I am going against the tide here and marking the answer as C. What is the official answer

Btw - I just did a quick check on other posts and the Official Answer = D though I am still not sure