By analyzing the garbage of a large number of average-sized households

Hi Sakii,

I agree - tricky question. Here is how I worked it out, to help you I've just focussed on the correct answer...

First, break down the passage. Finding the key parts....

By analyzing the garbage of a large number of average-sized households, a group of modern urban anthropologists has found that a household discards less food the more standardized- made up of canned and prepackaged foods-its diet is.

Ok so key point 1. Households with more standard products throw out less IN TOTAL

The more standardized a household’s diet is, however, the greater the quantities of fresh produce the household throws away.
Which of the following can be properly inferred from the passage?

Key point 2. If a house has a very standard diet it throws away more - AS A PERCENTAGE.

So we have 2 points, seemingly contradictory, but the key point is one is an overall idea about waste in total, the other one is about the percentage of their food they throw away.

(C) The less standardized a household’s diet is, the smaller is the proportion of fresh produce in
the household’s food waste.

So answer C resolves that contradiction. It shows that if people have a standardized diet, the fact they throw away more (as a percentage) is explained by their low proportion of fresh food.

Does that help?

By analyzing the garbage of a large number of average-sized households, a group of modern urban anthropologists has found that a household discards less food the more standardized- made up of canned and prepackaged foods-its diet is. The more standardized a household’s diet is, however, the greater the quantities of fresh produce the household throws away.

HH more standardized -> wastes less food,
more standardized -> more fresh produce thrown away

Which of the following can be properly inferred from the passage?

(A) An increasing number of households rely on a highly standardized diet. out of scope, mentions nothing about standardization trends

(B) The less standardized a household’s diet is, the more nonfood waste the household discards. out of scope, mentions nothing about nonfood waste

(C) The less standardized a household’s diet is, the smaller is the proportion of fresh produce in the household’s food waste. standardized throws away 50 lbs but 25 lbs veggies, not standardized throws away 100 lbs but 10 lbs veggies -> correct

(D) The less standardized a household’s diet is, the more canned and prepackaged foods the household discards as waste. this one is super tricky but only works if food waste is only comprised of fresh produce + canned foods (in reality you can have meats, pre-prepared). The passage doesn't state that, so eliminate

(E) The more fresh produce a household buys, the more fresh produce it throws away. opposite of what passage says (less fresh produce = more fresh produce thrown away)

Hi
I don't see a causality but correlation. The more standardized the less waste. Hence the less standardized the more waste - hope that helps. You can also confirm answer by Poe

Posted from my mobile device

Yes, it is D.
"a household discards canned food the more standardized it is". This is what actually leads to the inference.

POE:
(A) An increasing number of households rely on a highly standardized diet. not stated anywhere in the passage
(B) The less standardized a household’s diet is, the more nonfood waste the household discards. not given anywhere
(C) The less standardized a household’s diet is, the smaller is the proportion of fresh produce in
the household’s food waste. this could be a tricky wrong answer because it takes words directly from the passage but again this is not something that we can infer
(D) The less standardized a household’s diet is, the more canned and prepackaged foods the
household discards as waste. correct. paraphrase of a part of the passage
(E) The more fresh produce a household buys, the more fresh produce it throws away.not given in passage

Here: cr-analyzing-the-garbage-is-oa-wrong-43510.html

OA is given as C,

I think OA is C as well

Vote for C

Arguement states that "...household discards less food the more standardized- made up of canned and prepackaged foods-its diet is"

I believe D to be wrong because it states "...the more canned and prepackaged foods the...". It is tricking the reader by making the words 'canned and prepackaged food' synonomus to 'food' in general.
Also, the error with this answer choice lies in the assumption that these households are still consuming canned foods at all...


C fits the bill better. The less standardized a households diet, it follows that the less produce they will be discarding.

My choice is C.

More standardized a household’s diet indicates two things..

1. More cans and prepackaged food used ---> Less food discarded
2. More cans and prepackaged food used ---> More fresh produce thrown away

Here "More cans and prepackaged food used" indicates the standardized diet...

Option C is the negation of the point number 2 above... So this fits in..

i too think C is the answer because D assumes that all households have access to canned and pre packaged i.e. standardized food, which they throw away as waste . funny actually

less standardized ----> more food waste -----> less fresh food used discarded means more canned food discarded.

C

here the answer in my opinion is C because the canned are a distraction. here the correlation is: less standardized -----> less waste in proportion of fresh food.

That's it
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tricky question... still unable to understand

I think Answer of this question should be C not D.

(A) An increasing number of households rely on a highly standardized diet.--> irrelevant

(B) The less standardized a household’s diet is, the more nonfood waste the household discards.--- more standardized diet is, less food waste. thus less standardized diet, more food waste no nonfood waste. WRONG

(C) The less standardized a household’s diet is, the smaller is the proportion of fresh produce in the household’s food waste.--- if we just reverse the last line of the argument "The more standardized a household’s diet is, however, the greater the quantities of fresh produce the household throws away" we will get the answer......

(D) The less standardized a household’s diet is, the more canned and prepackaged foods the household discards as waste. ---- this sounds plausible at first chance. but if we go back to the argument we see that no relation is given between standardized diet and canned & prepackaged foods. so DISCARD it

(E) The more fresh produce a household buys, the more fresh produce it throws away.---how much a household buy is irrelevant. INCORRECT

So, C it is.

Question is not tricky at all,Just word management and jumbling of words


By analyzing the garbage of a large number of average-sized households, a group of modern urban anthropologists has found that a household discards less food the more standardized- made up of canned and prepackaged foods-its diet is. The more standardized a household’s diet is, however, the greater the quantities of fresh produce the household throws away.

Which of the following can be properly inferred from the passage?

(A) An increasing number of households rely on a highly standardized diet.

(B) The less standardized a household’s diet is, the more nonfood waste the household discards.

(C) The less standardized a household’s diet is, the smaller is the proportion of fresh produce in the household’s food waste.



(D) The less standardized a household’s diet is, the more canned and prepackaged foods the household discards as waste.

(E) The more fresh produce a household buys, the more fresh produce it throws away.

C is a better fit than D for following reason(s):

1. It is given, more standardised equals more wastage of fresh food, D- suggests the opposite - the less standardised household equals more canned wastage. From our preparation we know, opposites are not true. Thus we opt for C!

Thank you

Posted from my mobile device

based on conditional reasoning , how we can arrive at OPtion C? If A then B is not equal to not A is not B ( mistaken negation). therefore i did not consider C

please explain.

Argument - Higher the S = less food || Higher the S = more the quantities of fresh produce

(A) An increasing number of households rely on a highly standardized diet.
- No mention of the distribution of diet types among households
- Wrong

(B) The less standardized a household’s diet is, the more nonfood waste the household discards.
- "Nonfood" waste is not discussed in the passage. The passage discusses only about fresh produce waste
- Wrong

(C) The less standardized a household’s diet is, the smaller is the proportion of fresh produce in the household’s food waste.
- S and fresh product waste is directly proportional as per the argument. Hence this relation is true
- Correct

(D) The less standardized a household’s diet is, the more canned and prepackaged foods the household discards as waste.
- Again only "fresh produce" waste is discussed. We are not aware of the other constituents of waste
- Wrong

(E) The more fresh produce a household buys, the more fresh produce it throws away.
- This relation is completely out of context

Less Discarded ---> More Standardized Food ---> Greater Fresh Food thrown away . ( from Statement )

C > Less Standardized Food --> less Fresh thrown away .

D > less standardized food ---> more canned and prepackaged foods thrown away ( it can't be inferred )

E > more fresh food --- > More fresh thrown away ( cant be inferred )

Have you gotten your answer on this conditional reasoning? I have been thinking the same. I still have not figured out how this is correct. Thanks.
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Hi,

All we need is to focus on is what we are comparing .
our argument says -
1. The more standardised = More cans and prepackaged food used ---> Less food discarded
2. More cans and prepackaged food used ---> More fresh produce thrown away .

For infrence questions of this kind of mixed up data / info / comparison you can use quants approach .
For eg If I tell you a class has only boys and girls . 20% are boys .
So you can easily tell rest 80% are girls (even when its not stated ).

Here we can safely categorise the types of households into
1)more standardised . This category wastes more of Fresh food
2)opp - Less standardised . This category waste less fresh food .

Lets categorise them - If I eat only canned food then I will throw MORE fresh produce .
Based on this we can confidently say If I don't eat canned food (may be eat FRESH PRODUCE )I WILL THROW LESS FRESH PRODUCE (obviously I am going to eat the fresh produce so why would I throw all of it ) . So this leads to ---> I will be having less canned food = less standardised food.

(C) The less standardized a household’s diet is, the smaller is the proportion of fresh produce in the household’s food waste.
the canned are a distraction. here the correlation is: less standardized -----> less waste in proportion of fresh food.
more standardised -----> more waste in proportion of fresh food.



I hope this cleared/helped . GMAT often tries to puzzle us but when we really understand what we are looking for we will end up picking right ans either by POE or simply by knowing what should be right .