Vithal wrote:
but...A also assumes that "several years" would mean..several past continuous years!..but is probably the best of the lot!
(I picked C..but then, there is nothing mentioned abt. revenues etc...as given in the
OG explanation..)
Option AUnderstand the choice
As per this option the rule that the government has set up regarding prices of crops is in direct contrast to the efforts for reducing water pollution
Analyze in the context of the passage and the question stem
As per the passage there is
A rule for the benefit of the farmers - In order to get the benefit of good prices or price support from the government for a particular crop, the farmer must have necessarily produced the same crop for past several years
A recommendation for the reduction of pollution of water supplies- farmers should not cultivate the same crop but diversify crops and the farmers should keep rotating the plantings of different crops on a yearly basis.
Now if we compare the two pieces of information we can clearly see that if the farmer wants to benefit from the rule then he has to go against the recommendation. And if he wants to uphold the recommendation then he has to forgo the rule. Which means that the rule works against the recommendation.
Hence, this option can be inferred from the passage.
Choice CUnderstand the choiceThis option says that the farmers can continue to make profits
by rotating diverse crops which will reduce their costs for chemicals
but they cannot continue to make profits
by planting the same crop each year
Analyze in the context of the passage and the question stem
The passage contains the recommendation of the experts towards reducing water pollution. The idea is to reduce the usage of high levels of chemicals which the farmers were using to get high yields of the same crop. We can infer here that the aim of getting high yields of the same crop is with the aim of making profits. There are two reasons for this. (1) the government mandate for giving price support benefit is cultivate same crop for past several years. (2) High yields would mean distribution of costs and thus profits.
But there is no information given to conclude with 100% surety that even after following the experts’ recommendation, the farmers will continue to make profit by just saving costs for chemicals (they will not get the benefit of the price-support policy)
Similarly, we can infer that the farmers try to fulfil the governments mandate in order to benefit from price -support and thus make profits. It rather goes against this inference to say with 100% surety that they cannot make profits by continuing to plant the same crop.
Hence this is not the right answer choice.