CAT Critical Reasoning Practice question with Solution 52

Since we’re asked to pick the one choice out of five that does NOT weaken the argument, we know that the argument will be pretty vulnerable to weakeners. There are a number of assumptions at work in this argument, many of which lead to the weakeners in the wrong choices, but choice (C) is correct because it’s totally irrelevant to the issue of honey production.

(A) weakens the argument by undermining the major assumption that what’s true of Brazil will be true of the U.S. If, as (A) claims, the native bees in Brazil are different from the ones here, then the comparison the author cites is irrelevant—maybe domestic U.S. bees produce more honey than both Brazilian and Africanized bees do.

(B) and (D) both undermine another one of the argument’s basic assumptions: that commercial honey production won’t decline for some other reason. If, as (B) says, it’s more costly and difficult to use Africanized bees, or if, as (D) says, a lot of the people now responsible for honey production would rather cease and desist than use Africanized bees, then it’s quite possible that commercial honey production will decline if these bees are introduced. In any case, the author can no longer conclude for sure that it won’t decline.

(E) If Africanized bees are better suited to Brazil, then the author can no longer assume that in America, they’ll produce more honey than American honeybees. Who knows, maybe they’ll all die off once they get here.