PrepTest 121, Section 4, Question 3
Since 1989 the importation of ivory from African(103 more words not shown)
Which one of the following(8 more words not shown)
- ACustoms officials still(8 more words not shown)
- BMost of the(15 more words not shown)
- CIn the period(19 more words not shown)
- DMuch of the(21 more words not shown)
- EShortly after the(28 more words not shown)
Reading the argument
That sudden supply of “mammoth” ivory deserves a closer look.
Once elephant ivory was banned, importers began bringing in much more ivory under the legal mammoth label. One possibility is cheating: call elephant ivory mammoth ivory and get around the ban. But the increase alone wouldn't settle that. Perhaps customers who could no longer buy elephant ivory genuinely switched to mammoth ivory, increasing demand for the legal product.
Now add the next development. Officials gained a way to tell the two kinds apart, people learned that officials were using it, and the amount presented as mammoth ivory dropped dramatically. Why would the ability to catch a false label discourage people importing genuine mammoth ivory? This new fact makes the cheating explanation much more convincing.
What we’re looking for
We're asked what the information most strongly supports. My prediction is that much of the supposed mammoth ivory was really elephant ivory. The sequence supports that inference without requiring us to claim that every shipment was mislabeled.
Working the answers
- A
The passage introduces a technique for distinguishing the two kinds of ivory. It doesn't support the claim that officials still can't reliably tell them apart. That would also miss the apparent significance of the drop after importers learned about the technique.
- B
We aren't given information about other sources of ivory, much less evidence that they now supply most imports. The passage compares elephant ivory with ivory labeled as coming from mammoths. It doesn't establish the makeup of the entire current market.
- C
The elephant population is a separate question. We don't know how it changed after the technique was introduced. Import figures and labels alone don't tell us about births, deaths, or the overall number of elephants.
- DCorrect
This fits both changes: the mammoth label became much more common when elephant ivory was banned, then much less common when officials could check the label. If much of the purported mammoth ivory was really elephant ivory, both shifts make sense.
We considered a legitimate increase in demand at first. The later drop is what makes simple relabeling especially persuasive: once the label could be tested, a large amount of this supposed legal ivory disappeared from the import stream.
- E
We know that imports identified as mammoth ivory increased. We don't know that total ivory imports increased. Imagine the same amount arriving as before, with shipments formerly called elephant ivory now called mammoth ivory. The mammoth category would jump while the total stayed unchanged. E treats a change in one category as a change in the whole market.
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