Percentage of Population Visiting Selected Cultural Institutions

Question

The table below gives the details about the percentage of population of seven countries/political unions that visited the selected cultural institution.

Country/
political
union  
  Public
library  
  Zoo/aquarium  
  Natural history
museum  
  Science/technology
museum  
 
   Russia  
 15 
 8 
 5 
 2 
 
   Brazil  
 25 
 28 
 7 
 4 
 
   European Union  
 35 
 27 
 20 
 18 
 
   South Korea  
 35 
 37 
 30 
 10 
 
   China  
 41 
 51 
 13 
 19 
 
   Japan  
 48 
 45 
 20 
 12 
 
   US  
 65 
 48 
 27 
 26

For each of the following statements select  Would help explain  if it would, if true, help explain some of the information in the table. Otherwise select  Would not help explain.

Sajjad1994 · Accepted Answer

Official Explanation

Evaluate: This question tests the ability to make judgments about the plausibility of several statements as possible explanations for aspects of the data in the table.

RO1: Evaluate

If this statement is to be explanatory, it would likely be because, on average, people living closer to museums are also more likely to visit museums. Sorting on Natural history museum shows that, for the two museum categories (natural history and science/technology), a greater percentage of Brazil’s population than of Russia’s visits in a single year. Therefore, if, on average, Brazil’s population lives closer than Russia’s to museums, it could help explain information in the table.

The correct answer is Would help explain.

RO2: Evaluate

If this statement is to be explanatory, it would likely be because, among the countries/political unions listed in the table, the lowest average number of institutions per capita is associated with the lowest proportion of the population visiting such institutions. Sorting the table by Natural history museum shows that, among the countries/political unions shown, Russia has the smallest proportion of its population visiting natural history museums in a single year.

The correct answer is Would help explain.

RO3: Evaluate

If this statement is to be explanatory, it would likely be because the countries/political unions in which people are most likely to visit natural history museums are also those in which people are most likely to visit science/technology museums. However, sorting the table by Natural history museum and Science/technology museum shows that the country/political union with the fifth highest proportion of the population visiting natural history museums (China) has the second highest proportion visiting science/technology museums, a proportion that is higher than that of the countries/political unions with the first (US), third (European Union), and fourth (Japan) highest proportions in the natural history category.

The correct answer is Would not help explain.

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KarishmaB · Answer

Note that we are not looking for inferences. The question is "which option would help explain some of the information" i.e. if the option is true, it would help to explain why the data varies in the countries. It doesn't mean that this is why the data varies. It means that this could be a reason why it varies. The reason could be something else also but this is also a possible reason.

If you know that people in Brazil live closer to museums, you could argue that that is why more of them visit. It could explain the figures. Another way to explain the figures could be that people in Brazil are more fond of visiting museums. This could also explain if it were available as one of the options in our question.

VerbalNote · Answer

Official Explanation https://gmatclub.com/forum/download/file.php?mode=view&id=69789 screencapture-gmatofficialpractice-mba-app-gmat-official-starter-kit-practice-exams-1-2-free-2023-01-02-22_21_41.png

unraveled · Answer

For the second question, only percentage population visiting the NH museums is given. For Russia, 5% may mean 100 NH museums have by sparse number of people visiting while for US, for example, the number of people visiting out of total is 27%, which can be either 50 or 150 or anything else.
So, factors that would not matter are: 
1. Population of the Countries
2. Density of the people visiting the NH museums.
3. Relative number of people visiting NH museums in Russia to any other country.

Factor that would matter:
1. Ration of number of NHMs to population in Russia and ratio of number of NHMs to population in other the countries(off course this is asked).

Because there is no mention of number of NHMs in the table it should be 'Would not help explain'. Don't understand why it is 'Would help explain'.
If it has to be the latter,  don't there has be an assumption that Percentage of Population visiting NHMs is positively correlated to number of NHMs and negatively correlated to population of individual countries.??

Baps · Answer

First question : Would explain. Because a larger proportion of the Brazilian population lives within close proximity to at least 1 museum than that of the Russian population, it explains why a larger % of the Brazilian population went to the public library (25%) than that of the Russian population (15%).

Second question : Would explain. Because Russia has the fewest natural history museums per capita, it explains why Russia has the lowest % of its population that went to a Natural History Museum amongst all the countries.

Third : Wouldn't explain. Here, I have a different explanation from that of Apt0810. I think here the information would not explain anything because we don't know anything about the money invested. When the information says : "the three that spend the most money to promote their natural history museums", how do we know what are these countries? This report is about the "percentage of the population visiting cultural institutions", nothing is said about invested money. That is the reasoning I used to answer this question, but if I'm completely off track please let me know !

BLTN · Answer

VeritasKarishma 
Dear Karishma, the master of CR, could you shed some light on the validity of reasoning on 2nd question:
 Of the countries/political unions in the table, Russia has the fewest natural history museums per capita.
 
I am also bewildered how we can come up to such latent assumption that follows from the Official explanation provided by Sajjad1994?
If Russia has the smallest percent of visitors of NH museum does it imply that the number of museum per capita also the lowest? How we can compare percent and numbers? Or how we can straight infer that the low % of visitors is because there is low number of museum in lieu of simple unwillingness of residents to visit the museum?

For instance
100 museum/100 residents and only 5% = 5 visitors. = 1mus/capita
Or 
200 museum/100 residents and only 5% = 5 visitors = 2mus/capita

Thank you in advance.

KarishmaB · Answer

Think of a country that has no natural history museum. How many people there would visit? 0%
Now think of a country that has 1 natural history museum. How many people would visit it? The ones who are staying close by. The others living in other cities may not be able to normally even if the intent is there. 
Note that we are talking about large public places. A city with a population of many thousands would normally have 1 or 2 or 5 of these museums. Not 10000 or 20000 etc. 
It is not a question of 1 museum per capita or 2 museums per capita. It is more like 1 museum per 100 thousand people. If one is not available in your proximity, you may not be able to visit it even if you want to.

Hence the low numbers of Russia would be explained if we knew that Russia has the fewest museums per capita.

UmangMe · Answer

I am confused with first two answers
RO1
As per capita population visit to museum does not define the they live near to it, may be that country peoples like more to visit cultural museums and other country peoples doesn't.

RO2
Visiting per capita population doesn't means that they have more or less number of that institutions ie more popular institutions have more visit, also marketing and other factors may also involve

Posted from my mobile device

priyadabas01 · Answer

KarishmaB MartyMurray any general advise on how to deal with such questions, I was baffled with the lack of any insights related to the table, it seems as if the answers can be explained or not are open to interpretation here. However, I know that is not the case. Please explain the logic on how to approach such questions.

KarishmaB · Answer

Yes, you are right that the answers are not open to interpretation.

Let me re-iterate something I wrote above:
Note that we are NOT looking for inferences. The question is "which option would help explain some of the information" i.e. if the option is true, it would help to explain why the data varies in the countries. It doesn't mean that this is why the data varies. It means that this could be a reason why it varies. The reason could be something else also but this is also a possible reason.

If you know that people in Brazil live closer to museums, you could argue that that is why more of them visit. It could explain the figures. Another way to explain the figures could be that people in Brazil are more fond of visiting museums. This could also explain if it were available as one of the options in our question.

The given statements should be taken to be TRUE. Now that you know that 'the proportion of the population of Brazil that lives within close proximity to at least one museum is larger than that of Russia,' does the data in the table make more sense? 
Well, the data in the table shows that in Russia, 5% and 2% of the population visits the two types of museums. 
The table also shows that in Brazil, 7% and 4% of the population visits the two types of museums.

If I know that a higher percentage of the population of Brazil lives close to museums, it COULD EXPLAIN why the numbers are higher for Brazil. Hence I choose 'would help explain' here. 
Follow the same logic for the other two statements too. They are given to you as facts. Now see whether they help you make sense of the data in the table. Do they help explain why some data in the table is what it is?

Diwen2000 · Answer

Hey, I have a question.
In the new GMAT Focus Official Starter tool kits practice questions, there is an additional statement:

"Science and technology museums are less popular than other cultural institutions in the majority of the countries/political unions in the table."

I choose "would not help explain" but the correct answer is "would help explain".
My question is that I think this statement is just describing information in the table and does not explain information in the table. Therefore, I don't think this statement would help explain.

Could anyone help me about this?

chetan2u · Answer

Number of Science and technology museums are less than National museuem. A reason could be that "Science and technology museums are less popular than other cultural institutions in the majority of the countries/political unions in the table."

So,  less popular  does explain  lesser number  of science museums in majority of countries.

Aalto700 · Answer

Hi, regarding question 2, what if Russia has many museums, but Russians are not interested to visit them? Visits per capita may be low, but Russia can still have a high number of natural history museums per capita. wouldn't it help explain?

cheshire · Answer

The original statement under Q2 was:
 
If that were true, it would explain why only 5 % of Russians visited natural‐history museums: there simply aren’t many to go see.

Your alternative, “there are plenty of museums, but low demand," might indeed be another  possible  cause of low visit rates, but it isn’t the proposition we were asked about. Since the question asks whether  that specific  statement about museums-per-capita would help explain the low visit percentages, you should ignore any hypotheses about interest levels. So the correct choice remains  “ Would help explain” for the museums-per-capita statement.

Percentage of Population Visiting Selected Cultural Institutions

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Country/ political union	Public library	Zoo/aquarium	Natural history museum	Science/technology museum
Russia	15	8	5	2
Brazil	25	28	7	4
European Union	35	27	20	18
South Korea	35	37	30	10
China	41	51	13	19
Japan	48	45	20	12
US	65	48	27	26

Would help explain	Would not help explain.
		The proportion of the population of Brazil that lives within close proximity to at least one museum is larger than that of Russia.
		Of the countries/political unions in the table, Russia has the fewest natural history museums per capita.
		Of the countries/political unions in the table, the three that spend the most money to promote their natural history museums are also those in which science is most highly valued.

Would help explain	Would not help explain	Statements
		The proportion of the population of Brazil that lives within close proximity to at least one museum is larger than that of Russia.
		Of the countries/political unions in the table, Russia has the fewest natural history museums per capita.
		Of the countries/political unions in the table, the three that spend the most money to promote their natural history museums are also those in which science is most highly valued.

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Percentage of Population Visiting Selected Cultural Institutions

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