单选题 2.Which of the following most logically completes the market forecaster's argument?
Market forecaster: The price of pecans is high when pecans are comparatively scarce but drops sharply when pecans are abundant. Thus, in high-yield years, growers often store part of their crop in refrigerated warehouses until after the next year's harvest, hoping for higher prices then. Because of bad weather, this year's pecan crop will be very small. Nevertheless, pecan prices this year will not be significantly higher than last year, since__________.

A、 the last time the pecan crop was as small as it was this year, the practice of holding back part of one year's crop had not yet become widely established
B、 last year's pecan harvest was the largest in the last 40 years
C、 pecan prices have remained relatively stable in recent years
D、 pecan yields for some farmers were as high this year as they had been last year
E、 the quality of this year's pecan crop is as high as the quality of any pecan crop in the previous five years

【正确答案】 B

【答案解析】Argument Construction
Situation The price of pecans fluctuates based on the fluctuations in market supplies. When pecan farmers have a large harvest, they tend to save some of the crop in refrigerated storage until the following year, hoping to get higher prices then. This year's crop will be very small. But prices are not predicted to be significantly higher than last year.
Reasoning What can most reasonably complete the argument by filling in the blank? In other words, what would be the best reason for the prediction about this year's prices? This year's prices will be determined by the total market supply of pecans; this will include not only freshly harvested pecans but also pecans that were kept in storage from last year's harvest. Information about the relative size of last year's harvest could be partial evidence for a prediction about this year's prices.
A What this tells us, in effect, is that previous experience with very poor harvests provide a poor guide about this year's total market supply, since the practice of refrigerated storage of pecans had not existed then.
B Correct. This tells us that there was probably an unprecedented quantity of pecans in refrigerated storage from last year, so it is likely that the market supply of pecans this year will be relatively normal despite the poor harvest. This means that this year's prices will not be much higher than last year's; last year, the total pecan harvest was enormous and market supply probably relatively large.
C This creates a general expectation of prices not being inordinately high this year, but since the harvest this year was "very small," such a general expectation could remain unfulfilled, absent countervailing factors.
D This information is too vague to be useful. What percentage of farmers obtained satisfactory yields? Were these yields on farms that were by far the largest or the smallest?
E The reasoning is silent on the issue of pecan quality, even though perceived quality could perhaps affect prices obtained. The additional information does not tell us that this year's quality is better than that found in recent harvests.
The correct answer is B.