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Director
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The average age of chief executive officers in a large [#permalink]
 19 Apr 2009, 19:28
Question Stats:
33% (02:04) correct
66% (00:57) wrong based on 218 sessions
The average age of chief executive officers in a large sample of companies is 57.The average age of CEO's in those same companies 20 years ago was approximately eight years younger. On the basis of those data, it can be concluded that CEO's in general tend to be older now. Which of the following casts the most doubt on the conclusion drawn above? (A) The dates when the CEO's assumed their current positions have not been specified. (B) No information is given concerning the avg no of years that CEO's remain in office. (C) The information is based only on companies that have been operating for at least 20 years. (D) Only approximate information is given concerning the avg age of the CEO's 20 years ago. (E) Information concerning the exact number of companies in the sample has not been given. Needed your views.Came down to two but then not confident.
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Manager
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a)The dates when the CEO's assumed their current positions have not been specified.
IMO A, this undermines the conslusion
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Director
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I came down to C and E.Went for C.But not sure.Any comments friends?
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Current Student
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I feel C.
Since data collected is for the companies that exist for at least 20 yrs. So, it might be possible that few of these companies CEOs might have continued. We need to include more data to get idea about companies that are new to get idea about new trend.
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C. Conclusion is generalization based only on data from companies that have been in the sample.
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Senior Manager
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IMO C
Same explanation as scthakur
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Director
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Oa is C.thanks for the explanation.
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suyashjhawar wrote: The average age of chief executive officers in a large sample of companies is 57.The average age of CEO's in those same companies 20 years ago was approximately eight years younger. On the basis of those data,it can be concluded that CEO's in general tend to be older now. Which of the following casts the most doubt on the conclusion drawn above? (A) The dates when the CEO's assumed their current positions have not been specified. (B) No information is given concerning the avg no of years that CEO's remain in office. (C) The information is based only on companies that have been operating for at least 20 years. (D) Only approximate information is given concerning the avg age of the CEO's 20 years ago. (E) Information concerning the exact number of companies in the sample has not been given. Needed your views.Came down to two but then not confident. Its C. As per question stmt the sample is same companies 20 years ago which could represent smaller set 20 years ago so may not represent the true picture.
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Manager
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C is correct
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[quote="suyashjhawar"]The average age of chief executive officers in a large sample of companies is 57.The average age of CEO's in those same companies 20 years ago was approximately eight years younger. On the basis of those data,it can be concluded that CEO's in general tend to be older now. Which of the following casts the most doubt on the conclusion drawn above? It helps to give the reasons why you eliminated the wrong answers....(A) The dates when the CEO's assumed their current positions have not been specified. The data represents the average age of CEO of the companies in the sample. It doesn't matter when they took their positions, just that they are the current CEOs.(B) No information is given concerning the avg no of years that CEO's remain in office. Again, the data is comparing ages of CEOs today (current CEO) vs. the age of the CEO 20 years ago, whoever it was. It doesn't matter how long they've been in office.(C) The information is based only on companies that have been operating for at least 20 years. The data sample is limited to only 20+ year old companies... This should give you a clue that a limited sample cannot be the basis for a wide generalization such as the conclusion of the stimulus. This is the answer.(D) Only approximate information is given concerning the avg age of the CEO's 20 years ago. The approximations of the data doesn't really change the data, one set is higher and one is lower. (E) Information concerning the exact number of companies in the sample has not been given. if the data sample was from all of the fortune 1000 companies vs. only 10 companies, the data would reflect a more accurate representation. This point could weaken the conclusion slightly. However, C is a stronger argument.
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Director
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The scope of the data is limited to that of companies operating 20 years ago. The result is a generalization that does not necessarily represent the true picture of the other companies. Ages of CEO's in X, Y, Z companies 20yrs ago; Ages of CEO's in same company now. Sure misrepresentation. The correct response should be C
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Senior Manager
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C is the answer. The companies taken into account are those only which are there for past 20 years. That actually negates the conclusion drawn from the data.
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Senior Manager
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C
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My answer is C.
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+1 for C
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I am struggling between C and E. i find a post saying that C is a stronger argument than E. I want to know why C is stronger? thanks for replying.
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Manager
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lidong123 wrote: I am struggling between C and E. i find a post saying that C is a stronger argument than E. I want to know why C is stronger? thanks for replying. I think, answer E is wrong because it is given that to calculate the average at both the time i.e now and 20 years before, we have taken same number of companies. So, till the time we are comparing same number of companies, we can compare the two averages irrespective of total number of companies used to calculate the average. But in option C it is case of generalization. Author has concluded “CEO's in general tend to be older now” based on data from few companies that are operating from past 20 years. Author conclusion will be correct if he concludes, “CEO's in [strike]general[/strike] these companies tend to be older now.”
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Manager
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+1 for you firasath. Nice explantion, but I am not convinced with your explanation of option E. I have tried explaining that, please give your comments.
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Director
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C for me.
Since the survey was conducted on the same set of companies it can't be representative of the set of all companies.
Crick
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Great question.
Paraphrasing the question:
e: avg age of ceo of a sample of companies = 57
avg. age of ceo of the same sample of companies 20 years ago ~ 49
c: therefore, ceo's tend to be older now
assumption: only companies that are 20 or more years old are in the group
since the assumption is only a subset of a larger set of companies, it cannot be used to generalize a statement. Hence I picked C.
(C) The information is based only on companies that have been operating for at least 20 years.
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