A state warehousing corporation reports that its Rampur godown lost far fewer bags to damp last year than its Bilaspur godown — 340 bags against 1,900 — and concludes that Rampur is the better kept of the two. Which of the following, if true, most weakens the corporation's conclusion?

The two totals come off two different tests: one counts refusals by buyers, the other counts marks seen by a storekeeper, and the second will catch a great many bags the first never reaches. Two godowns keeping their grain in exactly the same condition would return unlike figures under those two tests, so the gap is at least as likely to lie in the counting as in the keeping. The stock each godown holds would matter if the corporation had offered rates rather than raw totals, but it has not, and the larger godown here is the one that already looks worse — the option would not close the gap. The age of the buildings is a fact about the plant that does not touch how the losses were recorded. And insurance taken in equal measure at both leaves the two records as unlike as before.