Read the following passage and answer the item that follows. Your answer to this item should be based on the…
Read the following passage and answer the item that follows. Your answer to this item should be based on the passage only.
Passage:
Policy makers and media have placed the blame for skyrocketing food prices on a variety of factors, including high fuel prices, bad weather in key food producing countries, and the diversion of land to non-food production. Increased emphasis, however, has been placed on a surge in demand for food from the most populous emerging economies. It seems highly probable that mass consumption in these countries could be well poised to create a food crisis.
With reference to the above passage, the following assumptions have been made:
1. Oil producing countries are one of the reasons for high food prices.
2. If there is a food crisis in the world in the near future, it will be in the emerging economies.
Which of the above statements is/are valid?
1 only
2 only
Both 1 and 2
Neither 1 nor 2
Solution
Statement 1 is invalid: the passage mentions high fuel prices, not oil producing countries, as a factor. Statement 2 is invalid: emerging economies are described as a causative agent of mass consumption, not as the location where the crisis will occur; this is more an inference than an assumption. Hence neither is valid.