The 50 Million Sheep Of New Zealand Outnumber Its People 13 To 1 GMAT Reading Comprehension

Reading Passage Question

The 50 million sheep of New Zealand outnumber its people 13 to 1, the highest such ratio in the world. At the wool industry’s peak, in the 1950s, the wool growers of New Zealand delivered well over a third of that country’s total export revenues. Yet this figure has declined drastically, as has the industry’s profitability. New Zealand is second only to Australia in total wool production and is the world’s largest producer of “strong wool,” a relatively coarse wool characteristic of crossbred sheep that is used mostly for carpets. But for the past 20 years, competition from synthetics has inexorably driven down the price of clean strong wool, causing annual production to drop by 65,000 tons as farmers switch land to other uses. Thus wool has fallen behind beef, lamb, milk, butter, cheese, fish, fruit, and wood and pulp as an agricultural export earner.

Rather than raising wool prices, the only reliable route to profitability lies, as in any agricultural enterprise, In improving productivity. New Zealand’s commercial sheep farmers need to achieve the same kind of annual productivity gains that manufacturers of synthetic materials have recorded. This goal could readily be achieved if the industry as a whole were to adopt the management and breeding practices of the country’s leading (and comfortably profitable) wool growers.

Gains on the order of those achieved by the world’s cotton growers—who on average have been improving productivity at several times the rate of wool growers can come wholly through better farm management. At present, wool growing in New Zealand, like agriculture everywhere, is deeply divided. On the one side are professional operations that exceed market returns, with 30 percent of farms achieving double the average profitability and the top 10 percent achieving 3 to 4 times the average. On the other side are family farmers willing to receive a substantially lower return to maintain their lifestyle.

To encourage increased overall productivity, the establishment of a commercial genetic research company (which would concentrate on genetic selection for crossbreeding sheep, not on the artificial manipulation of genetic material in individual sheep) 1s recommended. This would represent a shift in spending away from industry efforts to improve the efficiency of wool processing (for example, by lowering spinning costs) and toward efforts to cut the cost of producing a given unit of raw wool or to increase the quality of raw wool produced. Enormous gains in overall productivity could be made through genetic improvement. The best of New Zealand’s sheep produce wool worth significantly more than the wool of the country’s average sheep, and these superior sheep can be identified and kept as breeding stock.

“The 50 million sheep of New Zealand outnumber its people 13 to 1”- is a reading comprehension passage with answers for the GMAT. Candidates must have a strong understanding of English GMAT reading comprehension. This GMAT Reading Comprehension section contains 6 comprehension questions. The GMAT Reading Comprehension questions are intended to assess candidates' abilities to comprehend, analyze, and apply information or concepts. GMAT Reading Comprehension Practice Questions can help candidates actively prepare.

Solutions and Explanation

1. According to the passage, which one of the following is true of New Zealand’s wool industry?

(A) It supports a strong carpet manufacturing industry in New Zealand.
(B) It is overseen by a board that is representative of operators of both large and small farms.
(C) It has recently begun to shift investment toward researching more-efficient wool-processing techniques.
(D) It has followed a pattern of growth similar to that of the world’s cotton industry.
(E) It is the largest producer of strong wool in the world

2. Which one of the following most accurately expresses the main point bi the passage?

(A) New Zealand wool growers should be encouraged to shift to other agricultural exports to maintain profitability.
(B) Wool growing in New Zealand parallels agricultural practices worldwide in that it is becoming deeply divided between large professional operations and smaller family farms.
(C) New Zealand’s wool industry has been adversely affected by the development and improvement of synthetics.
(D) Superior farm management should be encouraged among New Zealand’s wool growers to revitalize the country’s wool industry.
(E) The wool industry in New Zealand has put too much focus on increasing the efficiency of processing and has failed to address the issue of dwindling breeding stocks.

3. Approval of which one of the following is implicit in the author’s argument in the passage?

(A) competition between New Zealand’s wool growers and producers of synthetics
(B) changes in land use by New Zealand’s farmers over the last several decades
(C) the farming practices of New Zealand’s family farmers who grow wool
(D) efforts by New Zealand’s wool-growing industry to increase the efficiency of wool processing
(E) the farm management practices of the most profitable wool-growing farms in New Zealand

4. The passage most strongly suggests that which one of the following would be a function of the research company proposed for New Zealand in the final paragraph?

(A) to develop more-productive varieties of sheep by introducing genes from other organisms into the genetic material of sheep
(B) to concentrate on conducting basic genetic research that could have applications in various areas of agriculture
(C) to encourage wool growers to focus on developing other wool varieties as an alternative to growing strong wool
(D) to create a composite profile of optimal physical traits for sheep based on characteristics of the sheep that produce the most valuable wool
(E) to oversee the distribution of funds among the various programs intended to increase the efficiency of wool processing

5. Which one of the following is given in the passage as the cause of the decline in the price of clean strong wool?

(A) farmers’ switching their land to other uses
(B) market competition from synthetic materials
(C) market competition from Australian wool growers
(D) competition from cotton growers for available land
(E) the deep division in the wool industry between large and small farms

6. Which one of the following principles is most clearly operative in the author’s reasoning in the passage?

(A) An industry that seeks to increase its overall productivity should adopt, on an industry-wide basis, the techniques used by its most productive members.
(B) Increasing the overall productivity of an industry ought to involve requiring the industry’s leading members to give aid to the industry’s less productive members.
(C) Even if an industry has successfully increased its productivity, it should continue to explore new avenues for reducing costs. a
(D) An industry whose productivity is declining should model its business practices on those of its most successful competing industries.
(E) If an industry’s productivity is declining, then that industry should return to the practices it employed at the height of its success.

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