For Over Fifty Years, the Ocean-Freight Industry Worked to Make Ocean Freighters Faster and to Lower their Fuel Consumption.

Question: For over fifty years, the ocean-freight industry worked to make ocean freighters faster and to lower their fuel consumption. Despite considerable success, the economics of the industry grew worse, until the industry was almost dead. What was wrong was an incongruity between assumptions and realities. The real costs came, not from time spent at sea, but from time spent in port during loading and unloading.

Which of the following actions would be most likely to lead to a solution of the problem faced by the ocean-freight industry, as it is analyzed in the passage?

(A) Developing a ship’s engine that runs on a cheaper type of fuel than that traditionally used by ocean freighters
(B) Developing a ship with accessible cargo compartments that can be mechanically loaded and unloaded very rapidly
(C) Developing a ship whose freight capacity relative to the ship’s total volume is much larger than that of any existing ship
(D) Implementing a system to ensure that ocean freighters are loaded to capacity whenever they leave a port
(E) Implementing a marketing plan that focuses on routes that are known to be least threatened by unfavorable weather, thus permitting rapid trips and reliable arrival times

Answer: B
Explanation:

In GMAT critical reasoning question, candidates need to compare the arguments in the passage to see if it is according to the passage or not. They need to find the correct answer using their logical and analytical reasoning.

The question statement asks us to find the solution to the problem faced by the ocean-freight industry. We will analyze each option one by one:

(A) Developing a ship’s engine that runs on a cheaper type of fuel than that traditionally used by ocean freighters - As per the passage, the problem was the time spent and the cost related to it. This option does not speak about time but about the fuel costs. Using cheaper fuel will definitely reduce the cost but it might affect the build of the ship’s engine. Hence, we can call this option as incorrect.

(B) Developing a ship with accessible cargo compartments that can be mechanically loaded and unloaded very rapidly - The cost involved time spent at the sea and time spent in loading and unloading. The last line of the passage says “The real costs came, not from time spent at sea, but from time spent in port during loading and unloading.” We can understand that the concern was related to time spent in loading and unloading. This option states that developing a ship that can mechanically load and unload cargo rapidly is the best option. Hence, this is in sync with the passage and the correct answer.

We have found the correct answer. However, we will check other options too.

(C) Developing a ship whose freight capacity relative to the ship’s total volume is much larger than that of any existing ship - The passage does not talk about the volume or the capacity to load. This is not related to the passage and hence, we can discard this option as incorrect.

(D) Implementing a system to ensure that ocean freighters are loaded to capacity whenever they leave a port - The system of loading to the fullest capacity is in place. This will not reduce the cost or the time. Since, it does not help with cost or time, this is an incorrect assumption.

(E) Implementing a marketing plan that focuses on routes that are known to be least threatened by unfavorable weather, thus permitting rapid trips and reliable arrival times - This seems to be correct at first since the time spent at sea is important. However, as per the passage, the author states that loading and unloading is more important than the time spent at the sea. Hence, we can also consider this incorrect.

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