Quote:
In a recent year California produced an orange crop equal to only seventy-six percent of Florida's orange crop. However, when citrus crops as a group, including oranges, were compared, the California crop was twenty-three percent greater than Florida's crop for the same year.
If the information above is true, which of the following can properly be concluded about the Florida and California citrus crops in the year mentioned?
(A) Florida's climate was suited only to growing oranges.
(B) Florida produced larger oranges than California did.
(C) California produced more oranges than it did non-orange citrus.
(D) California's proportion of non-orange citrus crops was higher than Florida's.
(E) California had more acreage that could be devoted to agriculture than did Florida.
With Inference based CR questions, and those which include numbers/comparisons in particular, the GMAT tries to confuse the taker with its use of language. However, the most important rule to remember is that the answer you pick MUST be true, 100% of the time. What this means is that if it's even
possible that the statement is false, we must eliminate it.
All we know is that CA's orange crop is smaller than FL's, but their overall citrus crops (of which oranges are a part) are greater than FLs. Note that we know
nothing about what it means to be smaller or bigger (Is it by volume? Weight? Fruit size?), just that by whatever definition has been chosen, these are the comparisons.
Hence, the only thing we can really conclude from it is that CA's non orange citrus crop is 'bigger' than FL's.
Option A - This is such an extreme claim. Remember that we're looking to see if it's merely possible that the statement is false. Florida could have grown anything else, we have no info that says they could not.
OUTOption B - This is the trap answer. We don't actually have any info on orange size. FL's oranges could be bigger, but they could very well be smaller too, just with more bulk. The
only info we have is 'overall crop size'.
OUTOption C - We have no info on the raw numbers of anything produced. It could be that CA produced mostly oranges, or that they did not. Its possible that this statement is false and can hence be rejected.
OUTOption D - At first glance it may seem like we don't have the necessary info. However, we can actually compare the ratios mentioned. If we take non orange citrus in CA to be
p and oranges in CA to be
q, we find that we're comparing
p/q to
less than p/more than q. The proportion of non-orange citrus in CA is therefore clearly greater. In fact, its
not possible for the statement to be false, no matter what combinations we try.
CORRECTOption E - Who cares about agriculture as a whole? We are only focused on citrus crops, specifically oranges vs non-oranges. This option is irrelevant.
OUTThe right answer is therefore D.