Explanation
Correct answer: D.
Choice D is the best answer because it presents a finding that, if true, would most directly support Barboza and Trejos’s claim that rural female entrepreneurs who have received small loans from ALSOL are strategic in selling their goods less frequently than they could, even if it means missing payments. The text explains that borrowers in the ALSOL program use proceeds from their businesses to repay loans in equal weekly payments, with almost no penalty for missed payments. According to the text, Barboza and Trejos found that rural borrowers miss weekly payments in part because they don’t sell their goods as often as they could, a move the researchers claim allows the entrepreneurs to help increase profits for the goods they sell. Finding that the cost of bringing goods to towns with marketplaces is high for rural entrepreneurs but is largely independent of how many goods are brought would support the researchers’ claim: traveling to marketplaces less frequently would mean that a rural entrepreneur spends less on travel overall, and taking a large load of goods to a marketplace for essentially the same cost as taking a small load would allow the entrepreneur to more substantially offset the cost of travel with greater overall sales at the marketplace, resulting in more profit per good sold—even if those profits are earned less frequently and don’t support weekly loan payments.
Why the other choices are wrong
Choice A
Choice A is incorrect because the finding that many marketplaces require entrepreneurs to pay the operators of the marketplace a fixed percentage of proceeds to be able to sell goods there wouldn’t explain why rural entrepreneurs strategically choose to sell their goods less frequently than they could in order to increase their profits per unit sold. The fee equals the fixed percentage multiplied by proceeds, so its monetary amount varies with proceeds. For the same total proceeds, combining sales into fewer days would not reduce the total fee or increase profit per unit through fee savings.
Choice B
Choice B is incorrect because the finding that rural entrepreneurs can usually sell their goods for higher prices in cities than in their local areas but also face higher competition to sell goods in cities wouldn’t explain why rural entrepreneurs strategically choose to sell their goods less frequently than they could in order to increase their profits per unit sold. Higher city prices and greater competition describe differences between selling locations, but neither establishes why selling less frequently would increase profit per unit.
Choice C
Choice C is incorrect because the finding that rural entrepreneurs have lower costs and thus tend to require smaller initial loans than urban entrepreneurs do has no bearing on rural borrowers strategically choosing to sell their goods less frequently than they could specifically to increase their profits per unit sold. Lower costs and smaller initial loans describe differences between rural and urban entrepreneurs, but the finding does not link those differences to selling frequency or explain how selling less frequently would increase profit per unit.