#7 - Must Be True

[Administrator]

Complete Question Explanation
(See the complete passage discussion here: lsat/viewtopic.php?t=13775)

The correct answer choice is (B)

As with Question 5, the general nature of the question stem makes it difficult to arrive at a precise prephrase. Instead, try the process of elimination: any answer choice that cannot be proven by the passage will be incorrect.

Answer choice (A): Farmers are encouraged to grow only the crops requested by clients, but no guarantee is ever made that the clients will get the produce they want.

Answer choice (B): This is the correct answer choice. In the last paragraph, the author describes how Whatley reverses the traditional view of hard-surfaced roads as farm-to-market roads, calling them instead “city-to-farm” roads (lines 44-46). It is reasonable to conclude, then, that these roads are traditionally the means by which farmers transport their produce to the cities.

Answer choice (C): A typical 25-acre farm needs a CMC with 1,000 members, not a population center of 1,000 people. The author never suggested that a population center of 50,000 can support fifty farms with CMCs. Test-makers are quite fond of “tricking” you with numbers: pay close attention to what they mean, and what they don’t.

Answer choice (D): There are probably quite a few reasons why consumers would prefer hard-surfaced roads to other roads. No specific reason for their preference is mentioned in the passage.

Answer choice (E): While hard-surfaced roads are traditionally the means by which farmers transported their produce, the roads were not necessarily intended for farmers. Some might have been, but we have no way of proving that by relying solely on the information contained in the passage.

[saranash1]

Is answer choice A incorrect because "guarantee" is a word with a higher degree of certainty
compared to how it is mentioned in the argument where the author states, "Whatley encourages them to grow only crops the clients ask for, and to comply with the clients requests regarding the use of chemicals." But the passage doesn't say that they comply with the guidelines or that it is guaranteed that the produce will flourish that season?

[Steve Stein]

Hi Sara,

Sounds like you got it--"guarantee" is a very strong word, and even if the farmers limit themselves to requests, that does not guarantee that members will get the produce they want (as you point out, there are many factors that might stop them from getting everything they request).

I hope that's helpful--let me know whether this is clear--thanks!

~Steve

[saranash1]

Thanks! Just wanted to clarify!

[Michaeltinti22]

So I got this question right, and I stuck by it during BR, but I was pretty concerned about the wording in B. The passage states that the traditional view was a "farm-to-market road." Can we make the inference that cities fall under the umbrella term market? I'm just a bit confused, because similar-ish inferences often lead to incorrect answers. What separates this positive inference from one of those false inferences?

[Rachael Wilkenfeld]

Hi Michael,

That was really good attention to detail! Here, it's acceptable to treat market and city as interchangeable because they are talking about a road that runs in both directions. If the road runs farm-to-market one way and city-to-farm the other way, the market and the city are interchangeable. In other contexts, market and city might mean the same thing.

Hope that helps!
Rachael

[heartofsunshine]

I can see how answer B is directly supported in the passage. However, I chose A because of the line

"To minimize the need to seek hard-to-obtain loans, the market for the farm products should be developed via a “clientele membership club” (CMC), whereby clients pay in advance for the right to go to the farm and harvest what they require."

I took the words "require" to almost mean "guarantee" as in answer choice A. Any help in clarifying this?

Thanks!

[KelseyWoods]

Hi HeartofSunshine!

"Require" means the same thing as "need" but the statement is not strong enough for us to assume that the clients are "guaranteed" to be able to get the produce they want. My grocery store can run an advertisement saying "come to us for all your produce needs" but that doesn't mean that if I go there and they are out of avocados that I can sue them for false advertising. Similarly, saying that clients can harvest what they need themselves is not the same as guaranteeing that what they need will be there.

Hope this helps!

Best,
Kelsey

[sicm91]

Hey! I am having trouble seeing how B is supported in the passage, since what is mentioned in the last paragraph is that there is a traditional view, not that farmers traditionally do something. I thought this was LSAC tricking test takers, so I eliminated it. Was I being too skeptical?

[Robert Carroll]

sicm,

If farmers didn't traditionally use the roads as farm-to-market roads, it would be very odd for that traditional view to have gained any currency. I think it's a reasonable inference to think the traditional view came about because farmers did use the roads to take crops to market. Any hesitancy about that might be further alleviated by the wording in answer choice (B): "...some farmers..." If no farmers ever do that, it's very difficult to account for the traditional view.

Robert Carroll