Information and IdeasHardLocate a stated cause distinguished from a near-miss cause
Information and Ideas practice question
In 1968 the Thackeray Paint Works of Leeds discontinued its best-selling exterior green, which owed its depth to a lead-based pigment newly restricted by regulation. The firm's chemists substituted a chromium oxide of nearly identical hue, but within two years customers were complaining that the new green chalked, developing a powdery surface film, after a single summer of exposure. The trouble, an internal report concluded, lay not in the pigment at all but in the binder: to cut costs, the proportion of linseed oil in the formula had been trimmed in the very month the pigment changed, leaving too little medium to hold the chromium particles in place. Once Thackeray restored the original oil proportion, the complaints ceased, and the green sold unchanged for three decades.
According to the text, what caused Thackeray's reformulated green to chalk?
- A. The chromium oxide pigment differed noticeably in hue from the lead-based pigment it replaced.
- B. The regulation restricting lead pigments took effect before the chemists could finish testing the substitute.
- C. The formula contained too little linseed oil to hold the pigment particles in place.Correct
- D. Customers were applying the paint during the hottest summer months.
Answer: C. The formula contained too little linseed oil to hold the pigment particles in place.
The internal report locates the cause 'not in the pigment at all but in the binder': the linseed oil had been trimmed, 'leaving too little medium to hold the chromium particles in place.' Choice A contradicts the text, which calls the replacement hue 'nearly identical,' and in any case treats color, not durability, as the defect. B invents a testing timeline the passage never mentions. D misreads 'after a single summer of exposure,' which describes how quickly the film appeared on paint already on the wall, not when customers applied it.
Why the other answers are wrong
- A. The chromium oxide pigment differed noticeably in hue from the lead-based pigment it replaced.
- The text calls the chromium oxide's hue 'nearly identical,' and the complaint was about a powdery film, not color — so hue can't be the cause.
- B. The regulation restricting lead pigments took effect before the chemists could finish testing the substitute.
- The passage never mentions any testing of the substitute or a deadline the chemists were racing; that timeline isn't in the text.
- D. Customers were applying the paint during the hottest summer months.
- You read 'after a single summer of exposure' as when the paint was applied, but it describes how fast the film appeared on paint already on the wall.
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