Reading Comprehension

PT128 · S4 · P1 · Q5 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.

5.

The passage most strongly suggests that which one of the following would be a function of the research company proposed for New Zealand in the final paragraph?

  1. to develop more productive varieties

    Contradicted

    The first sentence of the final paragraph expressly rules out this idea. He's not talking about artificial manipulation of genetic material in sheep. We're not getting smarter about genetics because we're going to mess with their DNA in the lab. We're getting smarter about which lady sheep and man sheep we put into a romantic room with each other.

    8% picked this

  2. to concentrate on conducting basic

    Out of Scope

    Out of Scope: various areas of agriculture This company is specifically about sheep, not other areas of agriculture. It would concentrate on genetic selection for crossbreeding sheep.

    2% picked this

  3. to encourage wool growers to

    Out of Scope: encourage

    This might be somewhat tempting. Since this company will be encouraging wool growers to breed the most valuable wool, and since strong wool isn't the most valuable wool, won't it be encouraging them to grow stuff other than strong wool? This company isn't going to serve an advocacy role, as far as we were told. Their data may encourage wool growers to focus on other wool varieties, but their official function won't be to do outreach to wool growers. if anything, they would probably say to wool growers, "Psst, do you want to have your female sheep sired by this premium male sheep we have at the center in our breeding stock?"

    2% picked this

  4. Correct

    to create a composite profile

    Why this is right

    The job of this company is to help wool farmers "identify and keep as breeding stock the 'best of New Zealand's' sheep". They want to identify the sheep that make the most valuable wool, so that wool growers can use those premium males (or maybe premium females) as the primary breeders. So it's plausible that they will help farmers identify telltale physical traits about their sheep so they know which ones are more likely to result in valuable wool via crossbreeding. We aren't expected to have derived "composite profile" from the passage. It's just a reasonable common sense speculation for a company whose purpose is to identify "the best sheep", so that farmers can prioritize making sheep babies that will grow up to produce the most valuable wool.

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

    85% picked this

  5. to oversee the distribution of

    Contradicted

    It actually mentions in the last paragraph that by establishing a company like this one, we will be moving away from industry efforts to improve the efficiency of wool processing.

    3% picked this

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