Official Solution:
In a mountainous region where small-scale dairy farming has been practiced for centuries, agricultural extension officers recently documented an unexpected pattern: farms that had adopted a newly introduced breed of goat—one capable of producing roughly twice as much milk per month as the traditional local breed—reported substantially lower net profits per adult female goat per month than farms that continued raising the traditional breed, despite selling their milk at identical per-liter prices.
Which of the following, if true, does the most to explain the surprising result in the passage above?
A. Farms raising the traditional breed have, on average, nearly twice as many female goats as those that adopted the newly introduced breed, resulting in comparable total milk output across the two groups.
B. Most farms that have adopted the newly introduced breed have done so through a subsidized loan program; many are still repaying those loans, at a fixed monthly amount approximately equal to thirty percent of their aggregate monthly milk revenue.
C. Regional dairy cooperatives have begun offering modest volume bonuses to farms producing above a threshold that most traditional-breed farms meet but that most farms with the newly introduced breed, having smaller herds, do not.
D. The newly introduced breed is neither well adapted to the local climate nor robust against locally prevalent bacterial diseases, so it lives just under half as long after reaching maturity, on average, as does the traditional local breed.
E. To sustain its elevated milk output, the newly introduced breed requires imported supplemental feed, whose cost per animal is slightly greater than the additional milk revenue generated by the new breed over the traditional local breed.
The surprising result is that the new breed of goat ends up being less profitable per animal per month, despite producing twice as much milk as the traditional breed. Since the milk all sells at the same per-liter price, there must be some hidden expense associated with the new breed that exceeds the surplus revenue generated by its extra milk.
Since the new breed produces roughly twice as much milk, its per-animal milk revenue is approximately double (2x) that of the traditional breed. The "extra" revenue from the new breed is therefore approximately equal to the traditional breed's entire per-animal milk revenue.
To explain the surprising result, we need a hidden per-animal expense for the new breed that exceeds this whole extra revenue. (If the hidden expense just canceled out the extra revenue, the two breeds would generate equal profit per animal. We need to explain
lower profit per animal for the new breed, so the expense must be greater than the extra revenue, not equal to it.)
(E) Correct. (E) describes exactly this: an extra per-animal expense (imported supplemental feed) explicitly stated to be "slightly greater than the additional milk revenue generated by the new breed over the traditional local breed." Per-animal revenue rises by X, per-animal cost rises by slightly more than X, net per-animal profit drops. Mechanism, units, and magnitude all match.
INCORRECT ANSWERS: (A) This choice tells us that
total milk revenue will be similar across the two farm types. The puzzle is about profitability
per animal, not aggregate farm output, so this is a unit mismatch and doesn't explain the result.
(B) The loan repayment equals 30% of monthly milk revenue from the new breed. Since new-breed farms produce roughly twice as much milk per animal, their per-animal revenue is approximately 2R compared to the traditional breed's R. After loan repayment, new-breed per-animal revenue is 0.7 × 2R = 1.4R — still higher than the traditional breed's R. For the loan to flip the comparison and make per-animal profit lower on new-breed farms, it would need to exceed 50% of revenue, not 30%. (B) is not enough.
(C) A volume bonus to traditional-breed farms (which qualify) but not to new-breed farms (which don't) does increase per-animal revenue on traditional farms relative to new-breed farms — pointing in the right direction. However, the bonus is described as "modest," and to explain the surprising result, traditional-breed per-animal profit needs to exceed new-breed per-animal profit even though new-breed milk revenue is double. A modest bonus cannot offset a doubled revenue advantage. (C) explains a small piece of the gap, not the gap itself.
(D) Shorter lifespan affects total lifetime profit per animal, not monthly profit per animal. While each new-breed goat is alive and producing, its monthly milk revenue and monthly costs are unchanged by its eventual death. The puzzle is framed per month, so lifespan doesn't enter the comparison. Replacement costs would change this analysis, but the choice doesn't mention them.
Answer: E