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Hi. I guessed (c) by poe, but not quite sure why it's right. I thought the discrepancy we were trying to resolve was: hybrids better than non-hybrids in test condition, but when non-hybrids replaced with hybrids in real conditions, no improvement. Am I supposed to reason out that only when farming conditions are better are hybrids able to produce higher yields, and in shitty conditions, they offer no improvement (or something along those lines)? Thanks.

This is a resolve the discrepancy question. The discrepancy is that although hyrbrid strains of crops have been shown to increase crop yields in test plantings, when farmers have actually planted them they have not always increased yields. Why could this be?

A) This answer choice involves the size of the farms. It does not seem plausible that the size of a farm would cause different yields. It might be plausible that different farms of different sizes would create different yields if compared with each other, but we are comparing farms that used to use non-hybrid strains with themselves now that they use hybrid strains, so size of the farm should not enter into the equation.

B) This answer choice involves the idea that although in many areas hybrid crops did not increase yields, in some cases hybrid crops DID produce higher yields. However the original sentence in the stimulus seems to imply that hybrid crops should always produce higher yields, not only sometimes. This answer choice does not help resolve why, although in test plantings the hybrid crops increased yields, in the real world they often did not.

C) This answer choice involves the idea that the test plantings were done in better conditions than when they are planted on an actual farm. This would help to resolve the discrepancy at issue. Why do test plantings of hybrid crops improve yields while actual plantings don’t? Well because the conditions for test plantings were significantly better. This is the corret answer.

D) This answer choice involves the sale of the crops. How well the crops sell have absolutely nothing to do with the yield of crops. The yield of crops would be how well the crops grow- not how well they sell.

E) This answer choice is similar to D in that it does not involve the yield of crops at all. Instead it merely deals with the monetary aspect of growing crops, saying that the government will subsidize certain crops.

I agree (c) would be an easy choice if the only issue was that in test conditions, hybrids do better while in actual conditions they don't. However, that still doesnt give a resolution to why hybrids did better than non-hybrids in testing conditions while in real life conditions they do not. I tried to reason it out in my previous post, but I'm not sure if I have to apply such roundabout reasoning.