PT154 S1 Q22 ExplanationNewspaper: Increases in produce

Answer choices, explained

1. A

   Irrelevant5% picked this

   Increases in produce prices are largely driven by increases in the fuel costs of bringing

   We don't care about the backstory of why produce prices went up. We are only interested in the backstory of why the seed companies' sales went up 19%, since our author's causal hypothesis is leaning on that.

   5%
2. B

   Trap15% picked this

   The average personal garden is much smaller than it was decades ago when inexpensive produce

   No Impact Out of Scope: size of garden The idea that today's gardens are smaller than 20-30 years ago moves somewhat in the right direction: it kind of hints at undermining the plausibility that there has been a recent increase personal gardening. But the author didn't claim that people's gardens had gotten bigger; she claimed that there has been an increase in the planting of personal gardens. So she's saying there are more people who went from no garden to some garden. The fact that 20-30 years ago, the average garden size is irrelevant. We don't care about average size; we care about how many people now have gardens vs. a year or two ago.

   15%
3. C

   Strengthens6% picked this

   Community gardens report that waiting lists for renting garden plots have gotten longer over

   This increases the plausibility of the author's causal story that people are more interested in growing their own stuff (possibly as a result of escalating produce prices). Not only does longer waitlists for community garden plots corroborate a lot of demand for personal gardening, it also might mean that people are motivated to start their own garden since they feel like they'll never get off the waitlist for their community's garden.

   6%
4. D

   Out of Scope: economic downturn11% picked this

   Personal gardens are usually popular in

   All we know is that produce prices spiked. We have no idea if we're in an economic downturn, so there's no way to relate this answer to the story we're analyzing.

   11%
5. E

   Correct63% picked this

   A large retail seed company went out of business early

   Why this is right

   This correct answer does what most correct Weaken answers do when dealing with Curious Fact / Explanation arguments: it provides a different way to explain the Curious Fact. Normally, on Weaken, my first pass through the answers is mainly with the mental mantra of "I need a different way to explain ____ ". If we read these answers saying, "I need a different reason why the two large seed companies have a +19% increase in sales", then this answer will resonate more. When Borders went out of business, Barnes & Noble's sales probably went up. When Circuit City went out of business, Best Buy's sales probably went up. If a large retail seed company goes out of business, then all its previous customers need to find a new place to buy their seed, so that drives new business toward the remaining seed companies.

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

   63%