Logical Reasoning

PT105 · S1 · Q25 A clothing manufacturer reports that

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A clothing manufacturer reports that unsalable garments, those found to be defective by inspectors plus those returned by retailers, total 7 percent of the garments produced.

Given that ...

7% of the garments this manufacturer produces are found to be unsalable (some are found to be defective by inspectors, others are just returned by retailers)

and that ...

All unsalable garments are recycled as scrap.

How can it be that ...

9% of garments are reported as recycled scrap?

Evaluate

What % of recycled scrap should we have been expecting? Why is 9% a surprising fact?

If we think that the only thing that gets recycled as scrap would be unsalable garments, then since 7% of garments are unsalable, we'd expect 7% of garments to end up as recycled scrap.

So if 9% of garments end up as recycled scrap, then there must be something in addition to unsalable garments that ultimately gets recycled as scrap.

It will have to be some form of salable (i.e. sellable) garment, since it can't be in the category of unsalable.

Goal

So it seems like we're looking for an answer that helps us to understand why some garments that are salable still end up being recycled as scrap. (maybe the manufacturer has a bunch of jeans leftover that they know they could sell at some store, but they want to take "that model" off the shelf so that it can be replaced with "this year's model", which would sell for more?)

25.

Which one of the following, if true, could contribute most to explaining the discrepancy between the reported percentages?

Garments with minor blemishes are
Unrelated to Goal
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.
6% picked this
The percentage of garments returned
Unrelated to Goal
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% picked this
Some inspectors, in order to
Unrelated to Goal
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.
4% picked this
The total number of garments
No Impact: raw number
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.
3% picked this
Correct
Unsalable garments are recorded by
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.
68% picked this

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