Reading Comprehension

PT128 · S4 · P1 · Q1 New Zealand's Wool Growers

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The 50 million sheep of New Zealand outnumber its people 13 to 1, the highest such ratio in the world.

Topic

The wool industry in New Zealand

Framework

Problem/Solution

Main Point

Although the wool industry in NZ has been suffering since 1950, based on the rise of synthetic wool, it could improve its productivity by adopting the practices of the country's leading wool growers.

Summary

P1 - Intro / Description of Problem

After telling us about the glory days for NZ wool in the 1950's, we get a Purpose Pivot (but, yet, however, recently). It tells us about a drastic decline in profitability, so it looks like a good Framework could be Problem / Solution. The rest of the paragraph continues to unpack the problem.

P2 - Big Picture Solution

In this paragraph, the author rejects one Solution (raising wool prices) and says instead that we need to improve productivity, and "this goal could readily be achieved if" the NZ wool industry were to adopt the best practices of the leading wool growers.

P3 - Obstacle to Solution

This paragraph essentially continues its contention that better management could do the trick. A tension is introduced between "professional operations" (who are sympathetic to better management practices) and "family farmers" (who care more about lifestyle than maximal efficiency).

P4 - Specific Recommendation (start a genetic research company)

The author isn't talking about gene splicing, but rather just being more Darwinian by finding the superior sheep and keeping them as breeding stock.

1.

Which one of the following most accurately expresses the main point of the passage?

  1. New Zealand wool growers should

    Opposite

    This answer is telling the wool growers that the Solution to their problem is to give up on wool and try exporting a different product. We want the answer to say the Solution to their problem is to copy the methods of the top growers.

    2% picked this

  2. Wool growing in New Zealand

    Unrelated to Purpose

    This answer has nothing to do with the Problem / Solution framework. At best we could say this names the Problem, but it doesn't even really do that. Instead of focusing on the central topic (New Zealand's wool growers), this answer is making it seem like the passage was mainly focused on a global trend of family vs. factory farms.

    1% picked this

  3. New Zealand's wool industry has

    Wrong Emphasis: Problem, not Solution

    In any Problem / Solution passage in which there is an actual solution that's recommended, the solution is the must-have for our main point. An author who writes a Problem / Solution passage tells us about the Problem as background, but her real purpose in writing the passage is to communicate what she sees as the solution. This answer only tells us the problem. We need to hear the Solution: New Zealand's wool growers should copy the methods of the top growers.

    11% picked this

  4. Correct

    Superior farm management should be

    Why this is right

    This has the recommendation vibe ("should be encouraged") that sounds like we're hearing the author's Solution. We were looking to match up with the end of the 2nd paragraph, where the author says that we could readily fix this problem if the industry as a whole adopted the practices of the leading wool growers. Does "adopting the practices of the leading wool growers (who are comfortably profitable)" qualify as "superior farm management"? Sure, in fact the first sentence of the 3rd paragraph even uses similar language: Gains ... can come wholly through better farm management.

    Skill tested: Main Point · how this choice captures the passage's function is the move to repeat next time.

    83% picked this

  5. The wool industry in New

    Trap

    Too Narrow Out of Scope: dwindling stocks The main point of this passage should sound like a solution / recommendation, which this answer does not sound like. This answer sounds like it's pinpointing a problem. We might "hear" an implicit recommendation, like, "Don't do the thing I just said was problematic". But this answer makes it sound like the author's main purpose was to describe something that already happened. Meanwhile, we think the author's main purpose was to recommend what we should do next. This answer would be much better if it simply said, "The wool industry should put less focus on increasing the efficiency of processing and more focus into the issue of selective breeding". Even still, it would be a bit narrow. The broader, umbrella claim is that wool growers in NZ should be adopting the habits of the top performers. Shifting from processing efficiency to selective breeding would be one such way. Finally, this answer is talking about "dwindling breeding stocks". The passage never suggested that we're running out of breeding stocks. It's just saying that we can make much more money if we focus on finding the breeding stocks that yield the most profitable wool, and then make sure that we're breeding as much of those genetically optimized sheep.

    4% picked this

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