A clothing manufacturer reports that

Answer choices

1. A

   Unrelated to Goal5% picked this

   Garments with minor blemishes are sent to wholesale outlets for sale at discounted prices and are

   In order to resolve this paradox, we need to know why some of the garments that are recycled as scrap were technically salable, or we otherwise need to know how the unsalable garments we're recycling can be both 7% and 9% of garments produced. But this answer is about garments that are never returned for recycling.

   5%
2. B

   Unrelated to Goal20% picked this

   The percentage of garments returned by retail outlets as unsalable includes, in addition to defective merchandise, garments in

   In order to resolve this paradox, we need to know why some of the garments that are recycled as scrap were technically salable, or we otherwise need to know how the unsalable garments we're recycling can be both 7% and 9% of garments produced. But this answer just gives more information about the reasons why garments were deemed unsalable.

   20%
3. C

   Unrelated to Goal5% picked this

   Some inspectors, in order to appear more efficient, tend to

   In order to resolve this paradox, we need to know why some of the garments that are recycled as scrap were technically salable, or we otherwise need to know how the unsalable garments we're recycling can be both 7% and 9% of garments produced. This answer is saying some overzealous inspectors are branding some garments defective even when they're really not that bad (they might actually be salable). But this doesn't seem to provide an answer to the paradox. If we are noticing, "this was reported as defective? C'mon, Inspector 74. This one's fine. This is still salable", then that garment wouldn't be part of the 7% deemed unsalable and it wouldn't get recycled as scrap. If we aren't noticing, and we're just trusting the inspector, treating the garment as unsalable, and throwing it in the unsalable pile to be recycled, then this still does nothing to explain why this pile of clothing (unsalable, recycled as scrap) would be 7% and 9% of garments produced.

   5%
4. D

   No Impact: raw number2% picked this

   The total number of garments produced by the manufacturer has increased slightly over

   Since the facts we're given are expressed in percentage form, we don't really care about whether raw numbers are up / down / same. We're just trying to understand how, if 7% of garments are unsalable and recycled for scrap, the company reports that 9% of garments are recycled for scrap.

   2%
5. E

   Correct67% picked this

   Unsalable garments are recorded by count, but recycled garments are recorded

   Why this is right

   This isn't what we were anticipating (some of the salable garments are also scrapped), but it still works to resolve the mismatch. We're trying to understand how, if 7% of garments are unsalable and recycled for scrap, the company reports that 9% of garments are recycled for scrap. It turns out that it's because their methodology for reporting each thing is different. They report the % of unsalable garments based on number of garments. If we made 100 garments, and 7 of them couldn't be sold, then 7% of garments are unsalable. They report the % of recycled garments by weight. So if we made 100 pounds worth of garments and recycled 9 pounds worth of garments, then 9% of garments were recycled as scrap. If we made 100 garments and they weighed a total of 100 pounds, then on average it's one pound per garment. If 7 garments can't be sold and get recycled as scrap, does that mean that 7 pounds of fabric are getting recycled? No, not necessarily, because not every garment has to weigh an equal amount. Maybe the 7 garments that were unsalable were heavier garments like sweaters or trenchcoats, whereas all of the lighter-weight garments like underwear or T-shirts were still salable. That gives us a way to understand how out of 100 garments weighing a total of 100 pounds, the 7 unsalable garments (7% of our garment count) could be 9 pounds of recycled scrap fabric (9% of the total weight of garments created).

   Skill tested: Paradox · how this choice captures the argument's function is the move to repeat next time.

   67%