Worldwide, more books were sold last year than in any previous year. In particular, there were more cookbooks sold. F...

Mehran on October 25, 2018

Hi @smilde11, thanks for your post.

This stimulus presents a set of facts, not an argument. The question stem asks you to select the answer choice that is best supported by the stimulus.

Answer choice (A) is textually supported. Why do we know? Because the stimulus tells us (1) more cookbooks were sold last year and (2) most of the cookbooks sold were not intended for beginners. Together, these pieces of information from the stimulus support (A) ("last year, there were more cookbooks sold that were not intended for beginners than in any previous year").

Answer choice (D) is tricky - we don't know that "most of the cookbooks purchased last year that were not intended for beginners were purchased by professional cooks." We don't know this. We know that "more cookbooks than ever were purchased by professional cooks," and that "most of the cookbooks sold were not intended for beginners," but that is not enough to know that "most of the cookbooks purchased that were not intended for beginners were purchased *by professional cooks.*" Those cookbooks could have been purchased by people who were neither beginners nor professional cooks - or, actually, they could have been purchased by the beginners (just because a book is not intended for a beginner does not mean a beginner cannot buy it).

Hope this helps!