Between 1977 and 1987, the country

Answer choices

1. A

   No Impact: most important1% picked this

   Not since the 1950’s has the timber industry been Ravonia’s most

   We don't care about where timber ranks among Ravonia's industries. We're just trying to figure why, in the same decade, the amount of wood withdrawn went up and the amount of wood-jobs went down.

   1%
2. B

   Deepens Paradox29% picked this

   Between 1977 and 1987, the total number of acres of timberland in Ravonia fell, while the demand

   The fact that number of acres of timberland fell would seem to mean that they were cutting down trees at a faster rate than new trees were growing back. If the amount of wood taken from forests increases by 10%, that could coincide with there being fewer total acres of timber left. But this answer does nothing to explain why 12,000 jobs were lost in timber, even while demand for wood products was increasing!

   29%
3. C

   Correct64% picked this

   Since 1977, a growing proportion of the timber that has been cut in Ravonia has been exported

   Why this is right

   This is actually similar to one of our predictions: Maybe we're taking wood for a purpose that has nothing to do with the timber industry's normal operations, so that wood being removed isn't going to normal timber processing places; it's going elsewhere. This is saying that more and more wood gets shipped out of the country without being processed first. That helps us understand how we could be taking more wood out of the forest, but not needing as many employees involved in wood processing. It's because we're not processing that wood in Ravonia. The countries that are importing this Ravonian wood will process the wood in their country. This would be analogous to a country extracting more oil from the ground, but exporting it as crude, unrefined oil to other countries, where it will be refined. The country extracting more oil from the ground could potentially fire a bunch of oil refinery personnel because the oil isn't being refined within this nation's borders.

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

   64%
4. D

   No Impact / Deepens Paradox, if anything2% picked this

   Since 1977, domestic sales of wood and wood products have increased by more than export

   We don't really care whether domestic sales are increasing more than international sales, or vice versa. Either way, domestic and international sales of wood and wood products are increasing. That matches the background fact about the amount of wood being taken from forests going up by 10%. But that does nothing to explain (and even makes more surprising) the fact that so many people in the the timber industry lost their jobs, even while sales of wood and wood products are increasing across the board.

   2%
5. E

   No Impact4% picked this

   In 1977, overall unemployment in Ravonia was approximately 10 percent; in 1987, Ravonia’s unemployment rate

   Because this answer is about overall unemployment, not specifically unemployment within the timber industry, it seems unlikely to be sharp enough to give us any clarity about what's going on here. If unemployment overall in the country is going up, that aligns with the fact that the timber industry saw a 15% decrease in employment. However, the decrease in the timber industry's employment force is still disproportionately large. The country overall didn't see employment decrease by 15%, just by 5%. So we would still need an "extra" explanation for why the timber industry is doing particularly bad when it comes to job loss. But more importantly is that this answer doesn't do anything to help us understand how/why we're extracting 10% more wood with 15% fewer wood workers.

   4%