#6 - Concept Reference, Must Be True

[Administrator]

Complete Question Explanation

The correct answer choice is (E).

Answer choice (A):

Answer choice (B):

Answer choice (C):

Answer choice (D):

Answer choice (E): This is the correct answer choice.

This explanation is still in progress. Please post any questions below!

[kendragipson]

Hi!
I feel like I had a pretty good understanding of this passage, but got this question wrong. I found in the passage where the question stem was referring to, but do not see how E is the correct answer. Can someone please explain E? Thank you!

[katehos]

Hi Kendra, thanks for your question!

We can find the textual support for answer choice (E) in the third paragraph. In this paragraph, the author writes that "the result has been a dwindling number of small farmers -with many of those planting nonheirloom, commercial seed varieties- and a breakdown of many community and regional exchange networks." So, we know that at least two reasons exist for the reduction in heirloom variety: fewer farmers and broken down communication networks.

Answer choice (E) captures both of these reasons nicely, referencing both the reduction in farmers and the impact on sharing information.

I hope this helps!
Kate

[goingslow]

Hi there, why is (D) not a great answer compared to (E)? The last paragraph seems to present a causal chain, where world market economy invades small agricultural communities, which further leads to a decreasing number of small farmers and a breakdown of regional exchange networks. (D) seems to be the root cause and is just as good as (E).

Thank you for your help!

[Robert Carroll]

goingslow,

Your logic seems to prove answer choice (E) anyway! If the world market economy has invaded small agricultural communities and decreased the number of small farmers, similarly breaking down the exchange networks, then the lack of exchange is a key factor in the dwindling stock of heirloom crop varieties. We have a 1. smaller number of farms and 2. less exchange. Answer choice (E) talks about both of those - fewer farmers planting and fewer farms passing on information. So answer choice (E) is perfect.

On to answer choice (D). There's just no information in the last paragraph about the use or not of heirloom crop varieties in large-scale agriculture. The varieties are certainly not being shared as much...but are the stocks dwindling because agribusiness doesn't use them? Because they're not suitable to being adapted to that scale? We know that agribusiness is breaking down small-scale farming and exchange networks, but we don't know if the heirloom varieties aren't the kinds of crops that would be used by large-scale agricultural entities. So there's just no basis for that aspect of answer choice (D). As we saw, there is exact support for answer choice (E), so that is the answer.

Robert Carroll

[goingslow]

Thanks Robert!

[juleeahvang]

Hi, can someone explain why answer A is not correct? Is it because of the use of the word 'exclusively'?

[Robert Carroll]

juleeahvang,

That's correct. "Exclusively" is an extremely strong statement. There is no basis in the passage for inferring that fact. The last paragraph even says "with many of those planting nonheirloom, commercial seed varieties," which leaves open the possibility that some aren't planting nonheirloom varieties.

Robert Carroll