Q25 - The technical sophistication of commercial

[ohthatpatrick]

Question Type:
Inference (must be true)

Stimulus Breakdown:
From 1960 to 2010, the sophistication of fishing equip increased steadily.
From 1960 to 2010, the better equipment allowed the fishing industry to grab a higher % of the available fish, by weight, each year.
From 1960 to 1995, the fishing industry's harvest, by weight, increased steadily, but no increase from 1995 to 2010.

Answer Anticipation:
Must Be True inferences are usually centered around Conditional or Quantitative ideas (sometimes Causality). It looks like we have some math-y stuff here.

There's some tension between the fact that from 1960 to 2010, we were catching a higher % of available fish weight each year. But from 1995 to 2010, we weren't catching a higher total weight each year. In other words, how can the % of something keep going up, if the underlying total isn't going up?

As an analogy, how could the % of my income that rent represents go up year after year, if my total actual rent stops going up? It would have to be a change in the denominator. To calculate what % of my income rent is, we're dividing rent by income. If income stays the same and rent goes up, then it will represent a bigger percentage of my income. But if rent stays the same and income goes down, then that would also make rent a bigger percentage of my income.

Back to the fish: if the total weight of fish we're catching is the same in 1995 and 1996, then how could 1996 still involve us catching a higher % of the available fish-weight? It would have to mean that denominator has shrunk. From 1995 to 2010, the total amount of fish, by weight, must have steadily decreased.

Correct Answer:
C

Answer Choice Analysis:
(A) We know nothing about the average weight of each fish. Nothing in the info would let us gauge the number of fish caught.

(B) We know nothing about anything that happened after 2010.

(C) YES. Winner, winner, fish for dinner.

(D) Too strong. We don't know if it was "significantly lower". In fact, it may have been the same in 2010 and 1995. We only know that it didn't increase.

(E) Too strong, and we don't know anything about before 1960.

Takeaway/Pattern: If you're one of the many students that read Inference passively and then just start shopping for answers, this problem would probably be confusing. To read Inference actively, with purpose, you should be thinking, "Where are there two or more ideas, usually relating to Conditional/Causal/Quantitative language, that I could pull together in order to derive something?"

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