LSAT-6-3-15

groundkeeper

Twenty years ago the Republic of Rosinia produced nearly 100 million tons of potatoes, but last year the harvest barely reached 60 million tons. Agricultural researchers, who have failed to develop new higher yielding strains of potatoes, are to blame for this decrease, since they have been concerned only with their own research and not with the needs of Rosinia.
Which one of the following is an assumption on which the argument depends?
(A) Any current attempts by agricultural researchers to develop higher-yielding potato strains are futile.
(B) Strains of potatoes most commonly grown in Rosinia could not have produced the yields last year than they once did.
(C) Agricultural researchers often find concrete solutions to practical problems when investigating seemingly unrelated questions.
(D) Wide fluctuations in the size of the potato crop over a twenty-year period are not unusual.
(E) Agricultural research in Rosinia is funded by government grants

答案，选B。 看了前人的解释，居然死活没搞懂为什么对A取非就不是对文章的削弱啊,求教了

robertchu

题目讲的是过去20年的事，和将来没关系．

groundkeeper

以下是引用robertchu在2004-6-21 12:19:00的发言：
题目讲的是过去20年的事，和将来没关系．

不太懂! robertchu, could U explan it again in easier way, many many thanks...太笨了..我

robertchu

题目讲的是过去20年的事，和现在(sorry, I mis-typed in my early post)没关系.
A讲的是现在.

groundkeeper

I may somewhat understand it--- when the tense of one choice is different from the question, we can disregard it.  Then the choice just a irrelevant choice,

robertchu! does this way is always right in any question?  求教again!

robertchu

I won't go that far.  It's always necessary to take a holisticview of each choice.   In A, not only the tense gives us someclue, but also the word "current" clearly indicates that it's talking about something that's happening now, so i'ts irrelevant to the question.