PrepTest 118, Section 1, Question 22
When uncontrollable factors such as lack of rain(32 more words not shown)
Which one of the following(7 more words not shown)
- AIf several of(17 more words not shown)
- BIf rainfall is(13 more words not shown)
- CFarmers are not(19 more words not shown)
- DA country's dependence(8 more words not shown)
- EThe consequences of(12 more words not shown)
Reading the argument
A drought can hurt people who never grow a single stalk of wheat.
If the wheat crop fails, the farmers lose production. But the passage follows the trouble into other businesses: fertilizer and seed dealers lose sales, truckers and mechanics lose work, and fuel suppliers cannot sell enough diesel to make a profit. Those businesses depend on activity at the farms. Trouble at the farms can spread to them.
What we’re looking for
There isn't an argument to pick apart here. We're given a situation and asked what follows from it. My prediction is simply that a lack of rain can have economic effects beyond the crops themselves. The answer could call this a drought, a weather problem, or a shortage of rainfall. The wording can change as long as the idea stays within what we've been told.
Working the answers
- A
Farming trouble can hurt these businesses, but it isn't necessarily the only thing that can hurt them. A supplier could lose money because its taxes rose or because it cannot find enough employees, even while farms are doing well. A treats one possible source of business trouble as the explanation whenever several businesses struggle.
- B
How far below average? Rainfall could be just 1 percent below average without causing any crop to fail. The passage concerns a shortage serious enough to cause crop failure, not every amount below the average. B also turns losing some business into losing money, which need not happen to every business that sells to farmers.
- C
We aren't deciding who deserves blame. The passage calls the lack of rain uncontrollable, but it does not give us a rule about a farmer's responsibility for all the consequences. Our conclusion should concern the effects described, not a new judgment about responsibility.
- D
The passage names several businesses that suffer. That does not establish a major crisis for an entire country. Agriculture might be a small part of that country's economy, with other industries continuing to do well. D expands a specific chain of economic effects into a much larger claim.
- ECorrect
The damage extends beyond farm productivity. Dealers, truckers, mechanics, and fuel suppliers are affected too. That's our prediction in different words: a drought can set off effects outside the farms where the crop failure occurs.
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