Canadian wheat farmers produced so much wheat over the last season tha

Hey All,

So Vann's explanation here was fantastic, but I thought I'd throw in my two cents. We don't get a lot of "Explain the Discrepancy" questions here on the forums, so I have to take one when I can get it. I just wanted to remind you all that there is still a process, which I'd like to model for you.

Instead of a typical CR outline (conclusions/premises/assumptions), discrepancy questions revolve around one question. Just make sure you REWORD/PARAPHRASE that question, and actually write it down. If you have confidence in it, you'll see how all the wrong answer choices fail to resolve your issue.

In this case, the discrepancy is fairly straightforward: How can the government pay a bunch of money to farms and yet not lose money?

It should be obvious that the correct answer better describe how the government is MAKING money in some other way:

(A) If prices were allowed to remain low, the farms would be operating at a loss, causing the government to lose tax revenue on farm profits.
ANSWER: This answer choice is a bit tricky, because instead of describing DIRECTLY how the government might gain money, it explains how the payments to farms will keep it from losing EVEN MORE money.

(B) Wheat production in several countries declined the year that the compensation program went into effect in Canada.
PROBLEM: See, without a rephrase of the question, this is the kind of weird indirect answer choice that you'd end up staring at for 30 seconds. But it doesn't remotely relate to the government making money, so we can cross it off.

(C) The first year that the compensation program was in effect, wheat acreage in Canada was 5% below its level in the base year for the program.
PROBLEM: Again, a bit of statistics to make you think you're missing something. But the amount of acreage is irrelevant, because we need to get more money to the government somehow.

(D) The specified maximum per farm meant that for very large wheat farms the compensation was less per acre for those acres than they were for smaller farms.
PROBLEM: This sucks for the farms, but still doesn't tell us anything about our discrepancy.

(E) Farmers who wished to qualify for compensation program could not use the land not harvested for wheat to grow another crop.
PROBLEM: Again, sucks to be a farmer.

The process is great because it helps you center your attention. This question is about THE GOVERNMENT, and answer choice A is the only one that even mentions the government by name!

Hope that helps!

-t