Which one of the following is given by the passage as a reason for the difficulty a lawyer would have in determining ...

Shiyi-Zhang on January 19, 2019

Could someone please explain the choice B in this question? Thanks!

Ravi on January 19, 2019

@Shiyi-Zhang,

We know that B is referring to the set of nylon instruments and not a
single nylon instrument because B says, "More energy was required for
each complete sterilization of the nylon INSTRUMENTS than was required
to manufacture the nylon instruments."

This tells us that B is basically trying to say that a given
sterilization of the set of nylon instruments used up more energy than
did manufacturing the set of nylon instruments.

As Mehran notes, we know that 50 sterilizations of the set of nylon
instruments required 3.4 times the amount of energy as was required to
manufacture the set of nylon instruments.

B is saying that if we take the 3.4x amount of energy required to
sterilize the set of nylon instruments 50 times and divide it by 50 to
get an amount of energy required for each sterilization, that that
number will be greater than x (which is the amount of energy that was
required to manufacture the nylon instruments to begin with).

3.4x/50 is WAY, WAY smaller than x, so we know that this has to be false.

Does this make sense? Let us know if you have any more questions!

Star_la on August 14, 2020

I think it would help people struggling with this question to be reminded that there is always a 1 in front of a variable (x or y).

x is equal to 1x (x=1x)

1x is what it takes to manufacture the set of instruments and 50 sterilizations are 3.4 times the amount of energy it took to manufacture the instruments. Therefore, you have to divide 3.4 by 50, and the answer is less than 1.