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Difficulty: HardWeakening Arguments

To increase household incomes in underdeveloped agricultural districts, a telecommunications company plans to deploy low-cost satellite internet service across remote farming villages. The company contends that providing farmers with real-time commodity prices and hyper-local weather forecasts through a mobile application will allow them to optimize their harvest timing and crop sales strategies, thereby substantially raising their net earnings.

Which of the following, if true, most seriously weakens the telecommunications company's argument?

  1. The vast majority of farmers in these villages sell their produce to regional distributors under binding multi-year contracts that predetermine fixed delivery dates and prices.Answer
  2. B
    Recent innovations in satellite hardware manufacturing have reduced the cost of installing receiver dishes in remote agricultural regions.
  3. C
    International agricultural research organizations rely on complex satellite climate modeling that requires computing power beyond the processing capability of mobile phones.
  4. D
    Subsidized crop insurance policies covering losses from unseasonal weather events have recently become available to smallholders in neighboring districts.
  5. E
    Farmers who access weekly commodity market updates over local radio stations consistently report higher profit margins than farmers who receive no market data.

Answer

The fact that most farmers sell their crops under binding multi-year contracts with fixed delivery dates and prices undermines the assumption that real-time market and weather data can alter their harvest and sales behavior.
The argument relies on the key unstated assumption that farmers have the operational flexibility to alter their harvest dates and crop sale strategies based on real-time information. If farmers are bound by multi-year contracts that mandate fixed delivery schedules and non-negotiable prices, receiving real-time data cannot influence their financial outcomes, directly shattering the link between internet deployment and increased earnings.

Step-by-Step Solution

1
Identify the main conclusion and premises of the argument.
Premise: Satellite internet provides real-time prices and weather forecasts. Conclusion: This access will allow farmers to optimize harvest/sales timing and raise net earnings.
Understanding the logic gap between premise and conclusion is essential for identifying unstated assumptions.
2
Determine the central unstated assumption.
The argument assumes farmers possess the operational freedom and market flexibility to act on real-time data by changing when they harvest and at what price they sell.
If farmers cannot alter their harvesting schedule or selling prices, access to real-time information will produce no actionable change in earnings.
3
Evaluate the options to find information that invalidates this central assumption.
Finding that farmers are legally bound by pre-determined fixed-price delivery contracts eliminates their ability to alter sales timing or prices, rendering the real-time information ineffective.
A valid weakener shows a critical flaw or counter-condition that prevents the cause from producing the intended effect.

Key Concept

Plan-to-Goal Feasibility & Unstated Assumptions in Causal Reasoning
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Topics

Weakening Arguments

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