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winter wheat VERSUS spring wheat

by rx_11 » Wed Nov 03, 2010 9:41 am
Which of the following most logically completes the argument below?

Davison River farmers are currently deciding between planting winter wheat this fall or spring wheat next spring. Winter wheat and spring wheat are usually about equally profi table. Because of new government restrictions on the use of Davison River water for irrigation, per acre yields for winter wheat, though not for spring wheat, would be much lower than average. Therefore, planting spring wheat will be more profi table than planting winter wheat, since___________.

(A) the smaller-than-average size of a winter wheat harvest this year would not be compensated for by higher
winter wheat prices
(B) new crops of spring wheat must be planted earlier than the time at which standing crops of winter wheat
are ready to be harvested
(C) the spring wheat that farmers in the Davison River region plant is well adapted to the soil of the region
(D) spring wheat has uses that are different from those of winter wheat
(E) planting spring wheat is more profi table than planting certain other crops, such as rye





























OA is A.

I've got two questions.

1. What type of question should we put this question into ?? I feel confused about this question because I do not know what does the 'since___________' mean?? I mean I don't know whether I should do.. Should I find a statement that support the argument, or explain the reasoning of the argument, or the assumption of this argument? I confuse.

2. Why is C wrong? I think C helps explain the argument and rule out the possibility that spring wheat cannot survive in this region. So why is C wrong?

Hope anyone can help me!! Thanks!
Last edited by rx_11 on Thu Nov 04, 2010 12:11 am, edited 1 time in total.
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by selango » Wed Nov 03, 2010 10:22 am
Winter wheat and Spring wheat are equally profitable.

Goverment restrictions on usage of water for Winter wheat.

Planting spring wheat is more profitable.


We need to look for the option that answer the question 'Why planting spring wheat is more profitable comprared to winter wheat?'

Option C is not correct.Why?

Because the argument states that both are equally profitable.If Spring wheat is well adapted to the soil,the winter wheat also do.It does not provide any reason why spring wheat is profitable.

Now look at Option A.

There may be the scenario since the usage is restricted to winter wheat,it may sell at higher prices for the compensation,Then in this case planting winter wheat is more profitable.
But Option A states that winter wheat harvest would not be compensated by higher price.In this case planting Spring wheat is more profitable.This is correct and logically completes the argument.
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by dkher » Wed Nov 03, 2010 11:11 am
rx_11 wrote:Which of the following most logically completes the argument below?

Davison River farmers are currently deciding between planting winter wheat this fall or spring wheat next spring.
Winter wheat and spring wheat are usually about equally profi table. Because of new government restrictions
on the use of Davison River water for irrigation, per acre yields for winter wheat, though not for spring wheat,
would be much lower than average. Therefore, planting spring wheat will be more profi table than planting winter
wheat, since___________.

(A) the smaller-than-average size of a winter wheat harvest this year would not be compensated for by higher
winter wheat prices
(B) new crops of spring wheat must be planted earlier than the time at which standing crops of winter wheat
are ready to be harvested
(C) the spring wheat that farmers in the Davison River region plant is well adapted to the soil of the region
(D) spring wheat has uses that are different from those of winter wheat
(E) planting spring wheat is more profi table than planting certain other crops, such as rye



Hi rx

In CR questions please pay attention to the specific words given in the argument.More importantly in the conclusion.
Here the conclusion is "Therefore, planting spring wheat will be more profitable than planting winter
wheat, since" the main word is profitable. 9 out of 10 times answer choice that attacks this word (or you may call it a scope of the argument) must be the correct answer, saying this you should still read all the other answer choices and eliminate them.
So here A and E are the answer choices that consider profitably but remember the arguments says the decision is between winter wheat and spring wheat, so E is out of scope.Hence answer is A.























OA is A.

I've got two questions.

1. What type of question should we put this question into ?? I feel confused about this question because I do not know what does the 'since___________' mean?? I mean I don't know whether I should do.. Should I find a statement that support the argument, or explain the reasoning of the argument, or the assumption of this argument? I confuse.

2. Why is C wrong? I think C helps explain the argument and rule out the possibility that spring wheat cannot survive in this region. So why is C wrong?

Hope anyone can help me!! Thanks!
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by rx_11 » Thu Nov 04, 2010 12:28 am
selango wrote:Winter wheat and Spring wheat are equally profitable.

Goverment restrictions on usage of water for Winter wheat.

Planting spring wheat is more profitable.


We need to look for the option that answer the question 'Why planting spring wheat is more profitable comprared to winter wheat?'

Option C is not correct.Why?

Because the argument states that both are equally profitable.If Spring wheat is well adapted to the soil,the winter wheat also do.It does not provide any reason why spring wheat is profitable.

Now look at Option A.

There may be the scenario since the usage is restricted to winter wheat,it may sell at higher prices for the compensation,Then in this case planting winter wheat is more profitable.
But Option A states that winter wheat harvest would not be compensated by higher price.In this case planting Spring wheat is more profitable.This is correct and logically completes the argument.

Hi, selango.

But I think this article has already told us per acre yields for winter wheat, though not for spring wheat, would be much lower than average.

Thus, if per acre yields for winter wheat are much lower than average, and per acre yields for spring wheat keep the same, then the planting Spring wheat will be more profitable, because they are equally profitable per acre yields. Hence I think A and C are both right because they both rule out the possibility that winter wheat will be more profitable than spring wheat under the condition that per acre yields for winter wheat would be lower than spring wheat.

Hope more replies. Thanks very much!
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by rx_11 » Thu Nov 04, 2010 12:30 am
Hi, dkher. I am confusing at C, not E. :wink: [/img]
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by sk818020 » Thu Nov 04, 2010 7:04 pm
To answer your questions;

1) This is an assumption question. It is asks you to determine what piece of evidence is absent, but must also be true for the conclusion to be true.

2) The argument says that per acre yield of winter wheat will be lower on average than that of spring wheat. The argument also concludes that spring wheat will be more profitable than winter wheat. Given this evidence you must ask yourself, if these two wheats are normally equally profitable, why would the lower than average yield of winter wheat per acre make it less profitable than spring wheat? There is only one conceivable instance where less yield per acre of winter wheat will become equal or more profitable than the average spring wheat yield. If the winter wheat becomes more expensive, you might be able to conclude it is equally profitable or more profitable. If the price stays the same or decreases, then the profitability of winter wheat will decrease, because your making less money per acre beacuse there is less wheat.

C is wrong because it doesn't tell us anything about the price, cost, or, therefore, the profitability of either plant. B and D are wrong for similar reasons. E is wrong because it compares the profitability of spring wheat to other crops which is irrelevant. A is correct.

I hope this helps. Please let me know if you would like me to clarify my points.

Thanks,

Jared
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by David@VeritasPrep » Fri Nov 05, 2010 5:38 pm
Let's take this toward the more general and learn something from this question that we can apply to other questions.

With a "most logically completes the passage" question you can look to the words just before the blank to help you understand what type of question this is...In the Veritas Critical Reasoning 2 book we have a chart of the words that precede the blank and the type of questions they signify.

In this case you have the following leading up to the blank "Therefore, planting spring wheat will be more profitable than planting winter wheat, since___________." The word "since" is a classic premise word so the blank will be filled in with a premise. In this case we are trying to strengthen the link between the evidence, which is the fact that the winter wheat will have lower yields, and the conclusion that spring wheat will be more profitable.

If the word before the blank had been a conclusion word, such as "therefore" then you would have been looking for a conclusion. So this fill-in-the-blank question is really no different because it can be broken down in to the regular types: strengthen, weaken, inference, paradox, etc.

Good Luck!
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by rx_11 » Sat Nov 06, 2010 12:52 am
sk818020 wrote:To answer your questions;

1) This is an assumption question. It is asks you to determine what piece of evidence is absent, but must also be true for the conclusion to be true.

2) The argument says that per acre yield of winter wheat will be lower on average than that of spring wheat. The argument also concludes that spring wheat will be more profitable than winter wheat. Given this evidence you must ask yourself, if these two wheats are normally equally profitable, why would the lower than average yield of winter wheat per acre make it less profitable than spring wheat? There is only one conceivable instance where less yield per acre of winter wheat will become equal or more profitable than the average spring wheat yield. If the winter wheat becomes more expensive, you might be able to conclude it is equally profitable or more profitable. If the price stays the same or decreases, then the profitability of winter wheat will decrease, because your making less money per acre beacuse there is less wheat.

C is wrong because it doesn't tell us anything about the price, cost, or, therefore, the profitability of either plant. B and D are wrong for similar reasons. E is wrong because it compares the profitability of spring wheat to other crops which is irrelevant. A is correct.

I hope this helps. Please let me know if you would like me to clarify my points.

Thanks,

Jared



Hi sk818020! Thanks for your reply. But I still think C is an correct answer IF this is an assumption question. Because if the farmers cannot plant the wheat, or if they cannot yield the plant, how can they make profits and how can spring wheat more profitable than winter wheat? Because spring wheat cannot even plant on this soil ! However, as David says, this is a support question, hence C here is incorrect. Thanks anyway, I know more about support and assumption questions from this post.
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by rx_11 » Sat Nov 06, 2010 1:05 am
David@VeritasPrep wrote:Let's take this toward the more general and learn something from this question that we can apply to other questions.

With a "most logically completes the passage" question you can look to the words just before the blank to help you understand what type of question this is...In the Veritas Critical Reasoning 2 book we have a chart of the words that precede the blank and the type of questions they signify.

In this case you have the following leading up to the blank "Therefore, planting spring wheat will be more profitable than planting winter wheat, since___________." The word "since" is a classic premise word so the blank will be filled in with a premise. In this case we are trying to strengthen the link between the evidence, which is the fact that the winter wheat will have lower yields, and the conclusion that spring wheat will be more profitable.

If the word before the blank had been a conclusion word, such as "therefore" then you would have been looking for a conclusion. So this fill-in-the-blank question is really no different because it can be broken down in to the regular types: strengthen, weaken, inference, paradox, etc.

Good Luck!



Hi! David! If this question is an assumption question, is A still correct?
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by David@VeritasPrep » Sat Nov 06, 2010 3:50 am
rx_11 -

To answer your question, I would not treat this as an assumption just because it is asking for a premise that is not yet stated. All strengthen questions are looking for a premise that has not been stated. On official questions the word "assumption" or "assumes" will be there. However, if you do treat this as an assumption A is still the best answer.

sk818020 (Jared) has given a great explanation on answer choice A and that is why I commented on other aspects of the problem - no need for me to duplicate.

The argument already tells you that Spring wheat and Winter wheat are usually equally profitable. So as Selango says, the two wheats should each be fairly well adapted to the soil - or else they are both poorly adapted. In either case I do not think that C is an assumption. What if the wheat is not well adapted? What if it is only "okay" in terms of adaptation? What if the adaptation is average? That would not mean that Spring wheat will not be more profitable given what we are already told. The thing that has changed is that winter wheat yields are down. So this will result in less profit unless the price is up. As Jared says, as long as answer choice A is in place this means that spring wheat will be more profitable. The only way to make winter wheat more profitable is for winter wheat to command higher prices. Choice A eliminates this possibility.

So strengthen or assumption A is the correct answer.
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by bblast » Tue Jun 28, 2011 3:32 am
Hi David,
this is from OG-12 Q 47.
I treated this as an assumption question as we need to find an additional premise(Since,......).

With my little stopwatch timer running, I spotted a gap in the arguement -"per acre yields for winter wheat, though not for spring wheat, would be much lower than average.". So I went like this - " We need to find an answer choice that would justify this ".

so I used C to fill in this GAP. -"all right the spring wheat is well adapted so it will give higher yields"

When I went back to review I realized the answer is A. After reading the explanations and applying the negation I am quite convinced that A is right. Still isn't C too close for comfort ?

Please let me now where my reasoning went wrong.



(Edit : I think I realize what I messed up. I made an additional assumption that higher yields = more profits)
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by Tani » Tue Jun 28, 2011 8:10 am
The answer needs to address this year's differential between spring wheat and winter wheat because normally they are equally profitable. C tells us nothing about winter wheat. The only thing we might say is that it tells us that winter wheat is well-adapted since spring and winter wheat normally are equally profitable therefore presumably equally well-adapted.

Try the denial test. If the lower winter wheat yield WOULD be compensated for by higher prices, then we would not know whether to plant winter or spring wheat. Since denying A leaves us without evidence that spring would be more profitable, it kills the argument.
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by bblast » Tue Jun 28, 2011 10:39 am
Thank u Tani, the question was a rare tricky one in the first 50 of OG-12. or just that I missed it.Damn !!
Cheers !!

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by Tani » Wed Jun 29, 2011 8:00 am
Make mistakes happily! We learn from our mistakes. We don't learn anything new when we get a question right!:-)
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by bblast » Wed Jun 29, 2011 9:34 am
Very true, Thanks again Tani. :)
Cheers !!

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