qhoc0010 wrote:
Over the past seven years, private college tuition rates have increased, resulting in a large decrease in private college attendance across the country. Private college revenues, however, have progressively increased in each of the seven years during this period, and researchers predict further increases in the years to come.
Which of the following, if true, offers the best explanation for the situation described above?
(A) Most private colleges increase tuition rates approximately once every two years.
(B) Attendance at vocational schools generally exceeds attendance at private colleges in most cities.
(C) The increase in tuition rates at private colleges has influenced many prospective students to seek a state scholarship to attend a public university.
(D) The decrease in students attending private colleges over the last seven years has been more than offset by the increases in tuition.
(E) Private colleges gain a larger percentage of their revenue from alumni contributions than do public universities.
KAPLAN OFFICIAL EXPLANATION
Here we have a specific, and common kind of number question: an increase/decrease problem. The author discusses two simultaneous trends that might seem to contradict one another. Tuition has increased at private universities, leading to a decrease in enrollment—so far that's logical. However, revenue at these universities has continued to increase despite the decreased enrollment. The correct answer must offer some source of revenue that more than compensates for the decrease in revenues created by the lower enrollment.
That's where (D), the correct answer, fits in: If the tuition hikes have brought in more revenue than the loss of enrollment has taken away, then it's easy to see how both trends discussed in the stimulus can simultaneously exist.
(A) The frequency with which private schools increase tuition doesn't begin to explain the revenue situation in the stimulus. The relevant fact is that tuitions are increasing, which triggers the rest of argument. In what specific manner they're increasing is irrelevant.
(B) offers an irrelevant distinction between vocational schools and private colleges that doesn't contribute any new information to the stimulus. Vocational schools are outside the scope, which focuses only on the situation related to the decrease in enrollment at private colleges.
(C) tells us what happens to some students who can no longer afford private universities. Their fate, sorry to say, doesn't matter, and again it doesn't add any new information to the scenario. We already know that enrollment decreased; this choice just gives us a human-interest story when we really want to know how it's possible under these circumstances for revenues to actually increase.
(E) is similar to (B) in that it provides another irrelevant distinction. It compares the role of alumni contributions at public and private colleges, while the stimulus does not express any interest in public universities or in alumni contributions. Even if private colleges do get a larger percentage of money from alumni, decreasing enrollment shrinks the number of alumni and would, if anything, seem to decrease revenue even further—thereby deepening the mystery rather than explaining it.
An 800 test taker knows that in an Explain question, the information provided in the stimulus remains true, and that the task is to reconcile, not to change, the presented facts.