Before refrigeration, ice harvesting became a crucial industry for preserving perishable foods, with large blocks cut from frozen lakes and...
GMAT Information and Ideas : (Ideas) Questions
Before refrigeration, ice harvesting became a crucial industry for preserving perishable foods, with large blocks cut from frozen lakes and rivers during winter months. Ice houses allowed communities to store meat, dairy products, and other foods for extended periods, but this preservation method faced significant limitations: ice supplies were completely dependent on winter weather patterns, storage facilities required constant maintenance to prevent melting, and transportation of ice over long distances was costly and often resulted in substantial loss. These constraints meant that ice-based preservation was eventually replaced by techniques that ______
Which choice most logically completes the text?
could preserve a wider variety of food products.
required less skilled labor to implement effectively.
functioned reliably regardless of seasonal variations.
reduced the overall cost of food storage and distribution.
Step 1: Decode and Map the Passage
Passage Analysis Table
| Text from Passage | Analysis |
|---|---|
| Before refrigeration, ice harvesting became a crucial industry for preserving perishable foods, with large blocks cut from frozen lakes and rivers during winter months. |
|
| Ice houses allowed communities to store meat, dairy products, and other foods for extended periods, |
|
| but this preservation method faced significant limitations: |
|
| ice supplies were completely dependent on winter weather patterns, |
|
| storage facilities required constant maintenance to prevent melting, |
|
| and transportation of ice over long distances was costly and often resulted in substantial loss. |
|
Passage Architecture & Core Elements
Main Point: Ice harvesting was eventually replaced because it had fundamental limitations that newer preservation techniques could overcome.
Argument Flow: The passage establishes ice harvesting as historically important for food preservation, acknowledges its benefits, but then systematically lists three major constraints that ultimately led to its replacement by superior techniques.
Step 2: Interpret the Question Precisely
This is a fill-in-the-blank question asking us to choose the best logical connector. The answer must create the right relationship between what comes before and after the blank.
Step 3: Prethink the Answer
- The passage systematically lists ice harvesting's three key problems: complete dependence on winter weather, constant maintenance needs to prevent melting, and costly transportation with substantial losses
- The replacement techniques must have addressed these fundamental issues to be superior
- The right answer should identify a characteristic that directly solves one or more of these core limitations, particularly the weather dependency issue since that's presented as a fundamental constraint
could preserve a wider variety of food products.
- Focuses on variety of food products preserved
- The passage doesn't suggest ice harvesting was limited in what types of foods it could preserve
- Doesn't address any of the three specific limitations mentioned
required less skilled labor to implement effectively.
- Focuses on skill level needed for implementation
- The passage never mentions labor skills as a limitation of ice harvesting
- Doesn't connect to the weather dependency, maintenance, or transportation issues described
functioned reliably regardless of seasonal variations.
- Directly addresses the first and most fundamental limitation: complete dependence on winter weather patterns
- Functioned reliably regardless of seasonal variations is the logical opposite of being completely dependent on winter weather patterns
reduced the overall cost of food storage and distribution.
- While the passage mentions transportation costs, it doesn't focus on overall cost as the primary issue
- The passage emphasizes reliability problems more than pure cost concerns