Contrary to earlier predictions,

It were possible that profits increased because the sugarcane growers became more efficient. It were possible that profits increased because sugarcane growers demanded and got a bigger proportion of the money earned from the sale of sugarcane.

Now pay attention to this comment: there is no way to answer your question without more context. We do not have before us the text from which you have taken your two sentences. Therefore, you are asking us to answer your question with less information available to us than is available to you. You are the only one who can, ultimately answer your question reasonably, unless and until you provide us the context.

Under the stated conditions, profits would increase if production costs were lower.

I think he may be asking a grammatical question about the structure of that sentence.

Tintin usually asks questions both about the meaning of the content of sentences as well as the grammar of sentences which he quotes. My experience to date is that the sentences he posts here are grammatically correct, but the content is often goofy. However, lacking context, it is not always easy to be sure.

thanks for the response.

I understand the situation . the question i asked , is truly beyond our understanding because what the author has assumed , we don't know.

and in fact , what the author is trying to say is really impossible to predict just by 3-4 lines of the para.

Unfortunately , i don't have more lines . i always post the full para.





leave those questions for this moment.

What I ALWAYS look for is , the TEXTUAL meaning of the sentence , and thats enough for me.

Sometimes, the words are bit complex looking or sometimes they are used in idiomatic way which is hard to percept......i am not a native english speaker .

Yea, i agree , the question i posted in this post , is tough to predict for anyone. in fact , i don't understand the TEXTUAL meaning of that bold sentence so far and hence i am confused .


AND Finally , i don't expect any definite answers . i look for probable answers .....so if you feel that there could a reason then its ok....because that helps me to think..."oh i see , this could be a reason ..great !"

By the way , can you please tell , what is meant by "sugarcane growers" ?

is it farmers who farms sugarcane ?

Farmers who farm sugar cane!

I think that "sugarcane" is American usage and "sugar cane" is British English.

It could mean men with machetes in fields or companies which own sugar cane plantations.

Farmers have a certain cost of production. The cost of production is related to fuel for machinery, fertiliser, herbicides, cost of land, labour cost of money to plant and produce (interest on borrowings).

If the cost of production is reduced and price received is stable profit increases.

An extreem example would be in 1996 labour to produce a hectare of sugar cane was (say) $5,000. and price recieved was (say) $10,000 profit would be $5,000 per hectare.

Let us then assume in 1997 the farmer employed some illegal Mexican workers, at say 3000/per hectare and the price recieved was still $10,000 profit would be $7,000.

If a farmer borrowed money from a bank to plant and grow his crop the cost of this borrowing is relected in the price he needs to charge for his harvested crop.
If the interest rate on year was 10% and he borrowed $200,000 his interest bill would be $20,000.

The following year the interest rate was reduced to 5% (hardly likely I know) His cost would be $10,000.
assumong he recieves the same price for his cane profit increases by $10,000.

Dont forget that many cane growers may have 100 or 200 hectares sown to sugar cane. Therefore small changes in input costs can have a marked effect on profit.

Profit has increased by 40%

"also" implies that as well as prices and production something else was stable. Reading back it is clear that "demand" has also been stable.

demand has been stable.

actually , demand for sugarcane is on an upswing because of the rising health concerns of high fructose corn syrup and the fact that corn is central to the ethanol mproduction cycle.

Contrary to earlier predictions, demand for sugarcane
has not increased in recent years. Yet, even though
prices and production amounts have also been stable
during the last three years, sugarcane growers last
year increased their profits by more than ten percent
over the previous year's level.


Any of the following statements, if true about last
year, helps to explain the rise in profits EXCEPT:
(A) Many countries that are large consumers of
sugarcane increased their production of
sugarcane-based ethanol, yet their overall
consumption of sugarcane decreased.
(B) Sugarcane growers have saved money on wages
by switching from paying laborers an hourly
wage to paying them by the amount harvested.
(C) The price of oil, the major energy source used
by sugarcane growers in harvesting their crops,
dropped by over twenty percent.
(D) Many small sugarcane growers joined together
to form an association of sugarcane producers
and began to buy supplies at low group rates.
(E) Rainfall in sugarcane-growing regions was
higher than it had been during the previous
year, allowing the growers to save money on
expensive artificial irrigation.


Google "GMAT Question of the Day"

Apparently, Tin is studying for this GMAT test. These are sample questions that are often posted here. This is fine, except that, for Tin, the vocabulary gets in the way of reasoning. It would help if we could see the ENTIRE question to help with the thinking skills required to solve the question. Sometimes, the vocabulary words that trouble TIN are not that important.

obviously this was not a recent occurence.