In the past, teachers, bank tellers, and secretaries were predominantl

Question

In the past, teachers, bank tellers, and secretaries were predominantly men; these occupations slipped in pay and status when they became largely occupied by women. Therefore, if women become the majority in currently male-dominated professions like accounting, law, and medicine, the income and prestige of these professions will also drop.

Which of the following, if true, would most likely be part of the evidence used to refute the conclusion above?

Which of the following, if true, would most likely be part of the evidence used to refute the conclusion above?

(A) Accountants, lawyers, and physicians attained their current relatively high levels of income and prestige at about the same time that the pay and status of teachers, bank tellers, and secretaries slipped.

(B) When large numbers of men join a female-dominated occupation, such as airline flight attendant, the status and pay of the occupation tend to increase.

(C) The demand for teachers and secretaries has increased significantly in recent years, while the demand for bank tellers has remained relatively stable.

(D) If present trends in the awarding of law degrees to women continue, it will be at least two decades before the majority of lawyers are women.

(E) The pay and status of female accountants, lawyers, and physicians today are governed by significantly different economic and sociological forces than were the pay and status of female teachers, bank tellers, and secretaries in the past.

mission2011 · Answer

I go for E. What is official answer ?

Let us put this whole thing in simple terms:

Fact: A Impacted B. Statement: A will also impact C.

To prove this is wrong, we need to pick answer which shows C is different from B.

x2suresh · Answer

Premise:
A Impacted ( decrease: pay and status )B 
Con:A will Impact ( decrease: pay and status ) C

Anser E: says C is different from B. (because C governed by "X" and B doesn't )
C governing by X cannot guarantee that.. Pay and and Status will decrease or increase or constant. So, E is not correct answer.

chetan2u · Answer

ill go for E... what reasons have been given by others on top for A are hanging on only assumptions, which do not relate to anything stated in argument.....
 however E gives a reason by making the two sets of job varying from each other so what is true for one need not be true for the other

angel2009 · Answer

OA is E https://www.urch.com/forums/gmat-critica ... ns-cr.html https://www.urch.com/forums/gmat-critica ... tatus.html https://www.urch.com/forums/gmat-critica ... y-men.html

Dreaming · Answer

(A) Accountants, lawyers, and physicians attained their current relatively high levels of income and prestige at about the same time that the pay and status of teachers, bank tellers, and secretaries slipped. - increasing pay in such professions have no bearing on payscales of teaching profession. (B) When large numbers of men join a female-dominated occupation, such as airline flight attendant, the status and pay of the occupation tend to increase. - out of scope; if anyting instead of undermining , supports the conclusion (C) The demand for teachers and secretaries has increased significantly in recent years, while the demand for bank tellers has remained relatively stable.-more demand should actually increase pay, not decrease it
(D) If present trends in the awarding of law degrees to women continue, it will be at least two decades before the majority of lawyers are women.- whether majority of such professionals are women now or 20 years later, doesnt affect the arguement either way (E) The pay and status of female accountants, lawyers, and physicians today are governed by significantly different economic and sociological forces than were the pay and status of female teachers, bank tellers, and secretaries in the past.- CORRECT - IF this is true, this can put forward a different reason for changing pay scale other than the one assumed by the author. hence it undermines the author's belieff .

tuanquang269 · Answer

(A) This one quite strengthen the conclusion, but i think it more out of scope

(B) Strengthen one

(D) More women join law industry => Strengthen ones

I confuse between (E) and (C), but I believe the answer (E) is stronger in weaken the conclusion. Therefore, the correct one is (E)

Mindreko · Answer

I got E. This introduces a new reason the pay is different. It is not a strong answer but is the best one in the options.

sdutta27 · Answer

Hi ,

The argument compares the past occurrences with the present. It compares that something(women will occupy those positions) that happened in the past will happen in future.
 too(assumptions here is keeping everything same or constant).

Now to refute the argument we have to look for something that shows that past and future will vary because of certain other factors.

Option E states that point.

Please let me know if i am correct .

Thanks
Shuvam

unverifiedvoracity · Answer

Yep. Straight E. In my opinion, A does not even come close.

A) Accountants, lawyers, and physicians attained their current relatively high levels of income and prestige at about the same time that the pay and status of teachers, bank tellers, and secretaries slipped.

We cannot conclude from A if there is any other reason why the status of teachers etc. slipped. While statement A is true, women entering the entering these professions, could have still caused the status of these jobs to slip.

abhimahna · Answer

Hi,

I think E clearly tells the reason why they are paid high and why women/men thing doesn't matter here. I dont agree with A at all. It is completely irrelevant.

I could see Chetan Sir has also agreed with E.

Since the OA for this question is not given, can someone please tell what is the OA?

Also, if it is A, then what is the reason for the same.

Thanks

GMATNinja · Answer

I'm not sure what the source of this question is. Looks like it's from some dodgy old internet sources from a decade or two ago, but the question seems reasonable enough.

I can't find a verifiable OA, but the answer seems to be E. Here's how I would break this down:

OK, let's start by locking down the conclusion. It's clear enough in this example:

Great. And the passage offers only a little bit of support for this conclusion: the other occupations (teachers, bank tellers, secretaries) "slipped in pay and status when they became largely occupied by women."

In other words, the logic is: pay and status dropped when women became the majority in other professions, so it would happen again if women became the majority in accounting, law, and medicine.

And now we're trying to find something that could plausibly be used to refute the conclusion.

This seems completely irrelevant to me. We don't care  when  accountants, lawyers, and physicians started to attain high levels of income and prestige -- that has nothing whatsoever to do with whether pay & prestige will fall in the future if women begin to dominate other professions.

Also irrelevant. We're interested in what happens when women begin to dominate a profession -- not what happens when men join a profession.

That's nice. It also has nothing to do with the core question: what will happen when women enter law, accounting, and medicine?

Great, but this tells us nothing about what will happen to pay and prestige in these occupations.

We have a winner! Why? We're trying to find a reason why the decrease in pay/status for teachers, bank tellers, and secretaries MIGHT NOT happen again in these other professions. And this points right to it: if there are significantly different forces at work in these professions today, then history might not repeat itself in law, medicine, and accounting.

So it's definitely (E).

abhimahna · Answer

Great. Thank you. I have added the OA to the question.

devikeerthansr · Answer

E gives a reason by making the two sets of jobs varying from each other so what is true for one need not be true for the other. E is the answer. To choose A we need to assume many things

kookies · Answer

I got E.

As the stimuli contains cause-and-effect reasoning (ex. women becomes majority of the industry -> status and pay is decreased) , E breaks this cause-and-effect relationship, insisting that women becoming majority of the industry is nothing to do with the change of status and pay, instead is by significantly different economical factors.

KaranB1 · Answer

How come this official GMAT question is using "like" to quote examples?
Strenge.

AliciaSierra · Answer

Hello  GMATNinja

I chose option A for this question. After reading option A, my thought process was it is not entry of women in teaching/bank teller profession that caused slippage of pay and status of Teacher, Bank Teller etc. When status & pay of other profession i.e. Lawyer, doctor, and accounting rose up, status & pay of teacher, Bank teller went down. For example, in real life sometimes when one profession goes up, demand/status/pay of other profession goes down e.g. Engineering Profession vs Art profession (example from Indian market )

VerbalBot · Answer

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In the past, teachers, bank tellers, and secretaries were predominantl

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