PrepTest 121, Section 4, Question 7
For many types of crops, hybrid strains have(52 more words not shown)
Which one of the following,(9 more words not shown)
- AMost farmers who(24 more words not shown)
- BHybrid strains of(14 more words not shown)
- CThe hybrid strains(18 more words not shown)
- DMany traditional nonhybrid(19 more words not shown)
- EMany governments subsidize(9 more words not shown)
Reading the argument
More crops sound promising. But more of a crop wouldn't automatically mean a better product if people disliked the taste. Keep that concern in mind without confusing it with what happens next.
The actual surprise is about how much grows. The hybrid strains outperformed the traditional strains in test plantings, yet many farmers who switched to those hybrids didn't get increased yields. We aren't told that their yields fell. They simply didn't get the improvement we might expect from the tests.
Why didn't the advantage carry over?
Perhaps conditions differ. A drought could interfere with growth. Or perhaps farmers spend so much on the seeds that they have less money left for other parts of growing the crop. Those are possibilities to investigate, not facts we're entitled to assume. The successful tests also don't promise success everywhere, but saying “It doesn't always work” still leaves us asking why it failed to improve yields here.
What we’re looking for
The question asks us to resolve that discrepancy. We need a reason the hybrids could do better in the tests without increasing these farmers' harvests.
Working the answers
- A
We could try to build a story: perhaps a larger farm gets less attention per plant. But A doesn't say that. A large farm might have enough workers and equipment to manage its acreage very well. Farm size alone doesn't explain why the hybrid advantage seen in testing disappeared. We'd be supplying the important part of the explanation ourselves.
- B
Hybrids producing higher yields in some places is consistent with the successful tests. It doesn't explain the places where switching to hybrids brought no increase. Repeating that the expected result sometimes occurs leaves the surprising result unresolved.
- CCorrect
The test conditions were significantly better than the conditions where most farmers grow the hybrids. That gives us a concrete reason not to expect the test advantage to carry over automatically.
Imagine the test plants receiving excellent water and sunlight, while farmers cannot provide the same conditions. A hybrid's advantage under favorable conditions need not remain an advantage under poorer ones. C doesn't prove the exact cause on every farm, but it identifies a difference between the tests and ordinary farming that helps explain the disappointing results.
- D
This addresses our initial thought about whether people would want the crop. Better taste and sales could make traditional crops a better business choice. But the question concerns the amount produced, not how much customers like it or what farmers can sell it for. Unpopular crops could still grow abundantly.
- E
A subsidy might help explain why farmers choose hybrids. It doesn't explain why their yields fail to increase afterward. More money could even help a farmer pay for growing the crop. We'd need another fact connecting the subsidy to the disappointing harvest, and E doesn't supply one.
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