According to a recent study on financial roles - CAT 1

[jnelson0612]

Moderators-
Would like to once again re-iterate as to how Answer is (c).
Again the question does mention that 1/3rd of high school seniors SAY that they have significant financial responsibilities.

How can an individual treat this as they HAVE as provided by Answer choice (c). I eliminated this choice based on the same.

Per my understanding, there are no ASSUMPTIONS TO BE MADE IN MUST BE TRUE/INFERENCE questions or am I understanding this incorrectly?? Any better 'Mantra' in 2-3 lines when working with such questions?

I see your point, but I'm curious to know which answer you thought was better supported based on the passage?

[SuketM391]

Hi Moderator,

I am still not convinced with the explanation.

My solution:
Total Students: S

Study 1: Significant financial responsibilities: S/3 = 0.33S
Study 2: Not taken finance course: 0.8S
Bounced Check: 0.8S/3

My case:
No. of students bounced check: 0.8S/3 + some students from remaining 20% of S who have not taken the Finance
PLEASE NOTE: same % NOT EQUAL to same students.

If more than 35% of the remaining 20% of S has bounced. Then this answer is wrong.

Therefore, isn't it too strong to say:
"The number of high school seniors with significant financial responsibilities is greater than the number of seniors who have bounced a check."

Please clarify.

[tim]

Everywhere in your post you should replace "not taken finance course" with "have a bank account". Then the .8/3 calculation is correct, because it is impossible to bounce a check if you do not have a bank account to write checks on. The question of who has taken a finance course is irrelevant except for the extent to which it tells us what percentage of students have bank accounts.

[yudand821]

this choice depends on an assumption that the three other classes of high school students will show patterns similar to the observed pattern for high school seniors.
there are no data available to support (or refute) this assumption, so you can't make any inferences based on it.

Hi Ron,

I have a question about the assumption that the population of seniors who participated in the first study equals to the population of seniors in the second study. It looks to me that Emily's explanation is based on this assumption. But as there are no data available to validate this assumption, can we even "assume" that this is true?

[Sage Pearce-Higgins]

The number of seniors that participated in the study is not important. The question refers to the population of high school seniors in total. I mean, if somebody wants some data about a population, they'll usually do a survey and find a percentage using that data, rather than asking everybody individually (which would usually be too time-consuming and expensive).

But perhaps you mean that we need to assume that the two studies are reasonably accurate. Sure, if one study only asked a tiny number of people who might be unrepresentative, then its results wouldn't be reliable. That certainly is an assumption that the passage is making, but it's a reasonable assumption and the kind that GMAT would make.