In the seventeenth-century Florentine textile industry, women were emp

Hi experts,

Would you please help to explain why choice C is not correct for Q3? Thank you.

Read the question statement carefully

3. The author of the passage would be most likely to describe the explanation provided by the human capital theory for the high concentration of women in certain occupations in the seventeenth-century Florentine textile industry as

Find the support from the passage

"To explain this segregation of labor by gender, economists have relied on the useful theory of human capital."

"There were, however, differences in pay scales that cannot be explained by the human capital theory."

Choice A best describes the author's opinion about the human capital theory while Choice C is ill-directed (goes to the wrong side)

Hey, why level passage is this one?

Posted from my mobile device

The difficulty level of the questions should be the following, in my opinion.

Question #1: 600

Question #2: 700

Question #3: 650

Notes:
Para 1:
In 17th century ,In Florentine industry.
Women were employed at low wages and in low skilled jobs.
To explain this ,economist have used Human Capital Theory(HC).
HC say more difficult skills will help in earning more money.
But women may take breaks may lead to loosing opportunities for gaining difficult skills.
In addition to this,HC Theory explains some low skilled job such as weaving is more attractive than other low-skilled jobs such as combing etc-----reason is weaving can be done at home
para 2:
Difference in wages cannot be explained by HC theory.
Example: males in construction were paid higher then women weavers ,even though both were low skilled work.
this can be only dure to gender( as only limited number of jobs were open to women and there was hige number of women for these jobs which lead to overcrowding which lead to receiving lower wages then men

hello expert,
GMATNinja could you help on Q1? how should I comprehend "combing or carding are low-skill jobs"?
As the passage says "a high concentration of women workers in certain low-skill jobs, but not in others (such as combing or carding), so I think "others" should be the rest part of the former part "low-skill jobs", thus it should refer to high-skill jobs.
Any expert help to explain? thanks

Question 1

The key here is to understand what "others" refers to. Other what, exactly?

Here's the exact language of that particular sentence:

Here, the only thing that "others" can refer to is "low-skill jobs." So, we know that the first half of the sentence provides a contrast about these particular jobs: women are highly concentrated in some low-skill jobs, but NOT highly concentrated in other low-skill jobs.

The second half of the sentence explains why this is the case -- women took jobs that they could do at home.

From this, we know that combing and carding are low-skill jobs that are not performed at home. (B) is the correct answer to question 1.

I hope that helps!

Good passage! Q2. checks the real understanding that we have got from the passage.

had trouble with question 2, but I can finally make it rest in peace. between B and A.

the problem with choice B is that it doesn't affect the main premise of the theory, the women could have been poorly taught competitive skills, AND their child-caring responsibilities prevent them from learning new skills, those two events are not certainly linked logically.

(the other options can be easily be eliminated)

­2. Which of the following, if true, would most weaken the explanation provided by the human capital theory for women's concentration in certain occupations in seventeenth-century Florence?

The "human capital theory" points that the basic reason women took the low skill weaving because it provided them flexibility to do work at home while also taking care of child. Other low skill jobs seems didn't provide this flexibility. So the key tenet of this reasoning is if they had such flexibility in outside jobs, they would take those jobs. Right? Option A highlights the issue that even if they had the flexibility, they didn't take these jobs, meaning that there is an alternate reason, which weakens the HCT theory. 

(A) Women were unlikely to work outside the home even in occupations whose hours were flexible enough to allow women to accommodate domestic tasks as well as paid labor. - ok
(B) Parents were less likely to teach occupational skills to their daughters than they were to their sons. - out of scope.
(C) Women's participation in the Florentine paid labor force grew steadily throughout the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. - Out of scope. In this context we are talking about the low-skill jobs. 
(D) The vast majority of female weavers in the Florentine wool industry had children. - We in a way already know this. 
(E) Few women worked as weavers in the Florentine silk industry, which was devoted to making cloths that required a high degree of skill to produce. - High degree of skill is out of scope of this question. 

­3. The author of the passage would be most likely to describe the explanation provided by the human capital theory for the high concentration of women in certain occupations in the seventeenth-century Florentine textile industry as

(A) well founded though incomplete - ok
(B) difficult to articulate - Author doesn't highlight that its difficult to explain. 
(C) plausible but poorly substantiated - No, the author is not saying there is poor evidence. 
(D) seriously flawed - No.
(E) contrary to recent research - no recent research