The production of leather and fur for clothing is labor intensive, which means that these materials have tended to be...

Christopher on May 12, 2018

@rmkrutz@crimson.ua.edu If you narrowed it down to those two, then you were clearly on the right track.

In essence, the statement says that labor-intensive materials tend to be expensive, yet their lofty prices tend to drop as demand softens as they become less fashionable and while prices on other, easier to make materials go up as demand strengthens due to becoming more fashionable.

Both answers seem to be saying close to the same thing, but this is where the test makers get tricky. The trick is that (A) adds a value statement by saying that the price "depends more" on one factor than another, but with the given information, you can't tell if that's true. Fashion influences the price and labor intensity influences the price. There is no information here to tell you which has a higher impact.

You can, however, say that trends influence the price of materials, which is basically what (E) says.

kassidee on March 24, 2020

I eliminated E due to "cultural trends" I don't see how we were talking about "cultural" in this passage....?

saskipper on June 23, 2020

^Same here. Please explain how the cultural aspect to answer E is acceptable.

Lea on August 24, 2020

I did as well. Please explain this.

hfatima1 on August 30, 2020

Hey @Lea, I am not an instructor but maybe my reasoning can be of assistance.

I did not like the cultural aspect of E either, however the words "But as fashion has moved away from these materials, their prices have dropped," implies that that culture has moved away from those materials resulting in the price drop.

I hope that explanation helped!

ScienceMathTutor on February 20, 2022

How are culture and fashion interchangeable words?

ScienceMathTutor on February 20, 2022

Are cultural trends the same thing as fashion trends and why?

Emil-Kunkin on March 22, 2022

Hi @sciencemathtutor

While culture and fashion are not interchangeable, they are related. Culture is a much broader term, but fashion is in fact one part of culture

Emil-Kunkin on March 22, 2022

Much like all squares all rectangles but not all rectangles are squares fashion trends are a part of what makes up the culture- but there are other components as well.