910 - Logical Reasoning

Partly because of bad weather, but also partly because some major pepper growers have switched to high-priced cocoa, world production of pepper has been running well below worldwide sales for three years. Pepper is consequently in relatively short supply. The price of pepper has soared in response: it now equals that of cocoa.

Question1: Which of the following can be inferred from the passage?

1. Pepper is a profitable crop only if it is grown on a large scale.
2. World consumption of pepper has been unusually high for three years.
3. World production of pepper will return to previous levels once normal weather returns
4. Surplus stocks of pepper have been reduced in the past three years.
5. The profits that the growers of pepper have made in the past three years have been unprecedented.

Question2:Some observers have concluded that the rise in the price of pepper means that the switch by some growers from pepper to cocoa left those growers no better off than if none of them had switched; this conclusion, however, is unwarranted because it can be inferred to be likely that

1. those growers could not have foreseen how high the price of pepper would go
2. the initial cost involved in switching from pepper to cocoa is substantial
3. supplies of pepper would not be as low as they are if those growers had not switched crops
4. cocoa crops are as susceptible to being reduced by bad weather as are pepper crops
5. as more growers turn to growing cocoa, cocoa supplies will increase and the price of cocoa will fall precipitously.