New Zealand's Wool Growers

Answer choices

1. A

   Correct75% picked this

   An industry that seeks to increase its overall productivity should adopt, on an industry-wide basis, the techniques used

   Why this is right

   This seems to vibe pretty well with what we were thinking. The universal/categorial language of "an industry that is X should do Y" would mean "If you're X, then you should do Y". industry seeking to should have whole increase overall ? industry adopt techniques profitability of most prod members The trigger and the outcome match language in the 2nd paragraph, where the author establishes her main point recommendation: the only reliable route to profitability lies in improving productivity ... this goal could be readily achieved if the industry as a whole were to adopt the techniques of the country's leading wool growers.

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

   75%
2. B

   Out of Scope1% picked this

   Increasing the overall productivity of an industry ought to involve requiring the industry's leading members to give aid to

   Out of Scope: required to give aid There's nothing in this passage that involves forcing the leading members to give aid to the industry's less productive members. Sure, the author is telling the less productive members to copy the techniques of the most successful ones, but she's recommending parts of their techniques that are common knowledge, not proprietary secrets. The passage isn't ever suggesting that the leading growers need to share proprietary business practices with the fledgling growers in order to assist them.

   1%
3. C

   Bad Evidence / Conclusion Match5% picked this

   Even if an industry has successfully increased its productivity, it should continue to explore new

   This principle is about an industry that has successfully increased its productivity, but the passage is about the wool industry, whose profits have been in decline. So that half doesn't match the passage, and then the other half about "exploring new avenues for reducing costs" doesn't match anything either. Yes, reducing costs is one way to increase profitability, but the passage never talks about it. The author is talking about increasing productivity (getting more value per unit of time), which can come about other ways as well (such as using premium breeding stock so that the eventual wool can sell for a higher price).

   5%
4. D

   Out of Scope: competing industries18% picked this

   An industry whose productivity is declining should model its business practices on those of its

   The wool industry's profitability is declining (it doesn't say its productivity is). But the bigger problem is that the main point of the passage is the author's recommendation that the wool industry model its business practices on those of its most successful wool-makers. This is saying "model your business practices on a competing industry." The passage wasn't saying, "The wool industry to copy the cotton industry's business practices". It was saying, "The wool industry can achieve the same boost in productivity that the cotton growers achieved, if the wool industry models its business practices on the most successful wool-growers."

   18%
5. E

   Opposite Conclusion1% picked this

   If an industry's productivity is declining, then that industry should return to the practices it employed at the

   The trigger here potentially applies to the wool industry (we know at least that profitability is declining). But the outcome is saying that the wool industry should go back to the practices they employed in their heyday. The actual advice the author had was that the wool industry should "adopt the management and breeding practices of the country's leading wool growers". The wool industry by enlarge is probably still using the practices it employed at its 1950s apex. The problem is that synthetics have since been invented and driven down the price of clean strong wool. In order to compete with synthetics, the author thinks the industry needs to change / modernize its techniques.

   1%