In a recent year California produced an orange crop equal to only seve

Question

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.

abhishek31 · Answer

can someone assist me with the answer? I chose B over D, basing my answer on the size of citrus fruits, rather than quantity. So if anyone can point out to me on what exactly I am missing out on, it will be really helpful.

Carcass · Answer

In a recent year California produced an orange crop equal to only seventy-six percent of Florida's orange crop.

California orange crop < Florida 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.

California citrus crops as a group > Florida citrus crops as a group

Which means that oranges are a subset of the entire group. It is true that the sub-group California oranges < Florida oranges. However, OVERALL the entire group of citrus California is > Florida.

The conclusion must be D

Moreover, B says that ONE orange in terms of dimension (the sphere/globe is bigger) NOT the oranges as a group as citrus fruit.

Regards

abhishek31 · Answer

carcass  so correct me if I am wrong, does it means that when we are comparing a single orange we are talking about the size of orange. But when we are comparing citrus fruits as a group, we are comparing quantity.

Carcass · Answer

The production of California' oranges is 76 and that of Florida's is 100 units (just to give an example )

However, the TOTAL citrus production of Florida (the citrus included are lemons, oranges, bergamot, cedar and so forth) is 1000 pieces and Florida TOTAL crops production is 23 % LESS than California's.

So if Florida has a total production of 1000 of citrus-like fruits, California has 1298 (approximately, because its production is 23% MORE than that of Florida)

C = 1298 - 76= 1222

F = 1000 - 100 = 900

C > F : 1222 > 900

D is the answer

(B) Florida produced larger oranges than California did.

Attachment:

orangeedit_0.jpg [ 889.47 KiB | Viewed 6891 times ]

abhishek31 · Answer

carcass  Thanks. Appreciate your time & effort.

Carcass · Answer

kudos if it was useful to you.

regards

CrackverbalGMAT · Answer

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.  OUT

Option 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'.  OUT

Option 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.  OUT

Option 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.  CORRECT

Option E  - Who cares about agriculture as a whole? We are only focused on citrus crops, specifically oranges vs non-oranges. This option is irrelevant.  OUT

The right answer is therefore D.

VerbalBot · Answer

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In a recent year California produced an orange crop equal to only seve

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In a recent year California produced an orange crop equal to only seve

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