0
Lucia0907 Posted 22 years ago
Vocabulary

Trade-off

What does "trade-off" means in the following sentence? Please help me! Thank you!
The main idea behind free quality is that the traditional trade-off between the costs of improving quality and the costs of poor quality is erroneous.
  

Top answer

Hello Lucia0907 A 'trade-off' is where you trade one thing for another. As a metaphor, it usually means 'compromise'. In a trade-off, you need 2 sides to the equation: let's call them A and B.

  • Hello Lucia0907 A 'trade-off' is where you trade one thing for another.
  • As a metaphor, it usually means 'compromise'.
  • In a trade-off, you need 2 sides to the equation: let's call them A and B.
  • In your sentence, A = the cost of producing goods of better quality.
  • B = the cost of producing goods of poor quality.
Free · every Monday

Get the Weekly English Kit 📬

New words, one handy idiom, and a 2-minute quiz — delivered to your inbox to keep your streak alive.

3 Answers
0
Hello Lucia0907

A 'trade-off' is where you trade one thing for another. As a metaphor, it usually means 'compromise'.

In a trade-off, you need 2 sides to the equation: let's call them A and B.

In your sentence, A = the cost of producing goods of better quality. B = the cost of producing goods of poor quality.

'A' could include e.g. extra machinery costs,
0
The two meanings of trade-off are the following: compromise and optimization. I think here it means optimization.

Related Questions