nitin6305 wrote:
Among 35-45 years old in Gowburg, some prefer music that was 20 years ago, whereas others prefer music that is popular today. Children and spouses of people who prefer music that was popular twenty years ago are themselves three times as likely as others in Gowburg to prefer music that was popular twenty years ago. Children of people who prefer music popular today are ten times more likely than others in Gowburg to prefer music that is popular today, whereas spouses of people who prefer music that is popular today are no more likely than other residents of Gowburg to prefer such music.
The information above provides most support for which of the following hypothesis?
A) Parents who prefer music that is popular today are more likely to have musical tastes in common with their children than with their spouses.
B) Unmarried adults are more likely to prefer music that was popular twenty years ago than music that is popular today.
C) Parents who do not have musical preferences are less likely than the general population to have spouses who have musical preferences.
D) Children of people who prefer music that was popular twenty years ago are not more likely than the general population to prefer music that was popular 20 years ago.
E) Between 10% and 30 % of children prefer either musical that is popular today or music that was popular twenty years ago.
This one seems to be easy as answer choices are spread far apart. I face difficulty with such questions though, request experts to review this question type and please provide some more examples of this kind and strategy to solve such question.
Time taken to interpret loads of info and then deciphering the answer choice appears very difficult to me.
Source : 800 Score mock
We want to find the hypothesis that is best supported by the paragraph. So far we know the first two data points are current popular music, and music from 20 years ago. Four more data points enter; children, parents, spouses, and general public(possibly the combined values). We'll start by eliminating anything outside the reading.
B, C and E are out of scope since these stats are not mentioned in the paragraph. Eliminated.
Now we'll need to compare A and D.
D brings up the idea of children compared to the general population, but children of people surveyed are three times as likely to have that musical preference. We can eliminate this one.
A remains since it aligns with the statement "Children of people who prefer music popular today are ten times more likely than others in Gowburg to prefer music that is popular today, whereas spouses of people who prefer music that is popular today are no more likely than other residents of Gowburg to prefer such music." A child of a person who likes popular music will have similar tastes but it doesn't mean the spouse will have similar tastes to both of them. Correct!