Sooner or later, I am hoping someone will discover these back-page responses I am giving to the Question of the Day series. My take:
Key points: The question asks about an
assumption that must be made to qualify the argument, so we need to read between the lines. The argument itself has to do with schoolchildren and chemicals, so that relationship will need to be addressed in the correct answer.
Breakdown: As is often the case in these CR questions, the first line of the passage sets the stage with background information; the next line delivers more information that seems to be building toward something; the final line delivers the essential information, here the argument on which the question is based. The second line should not be glossed over: a higher
proportion of children, compared to
ten years ago, is receiving treatment from nurses for allergic reactions to the chemicals from sentence one. What could explain this trend?
Answers: I like to highlight weak points in the responses to mimic the way I process them as I read.
(A)
The number of school nurses... has not decreasedAnalysis: The schoolchildren are left out entirely from consideration, and the focus is shifted to the nursing staff instead. Is it necessary to assume that the number of nurses has not decreased in order for this higher proportion of chemical-allergic children to become qualified? Of course not. It could be the case that there really are more children who are developing allergies to the chemicals, regardless of what may be going on with the nurses. This is a classic GMAT™ sleight of hand. Red light.
(B)
no more likely than other children...Analysis: Why do we need to compare schoolchildren and the types of allergies they have to explain why more children have been visiting the nurses for a specific allergic reaction? The thought had not even crossed my mind until now. As soon as I reached "other substances," I knew this response had completely gone off the rails. Red light.
(C) Children are not sent to the nurses now any more than they used to be for allergic reactions to "the chemical"
Analysis: The "not" gives reason for pause. To join the question and the response, we need to understand that the assumption is that children with an allergic reaction to these specific chemicals are sent to see the nurses with about the same frequency that they used to be sent. If that were NOT true--i.e. that the children were being sent more frequently for some other reason, such as that identification of symptoms had gotten better in the past decade, or any of a number of reasons--then no assumption would need to be made. We would have the facts or evidence we needed instead. This is an answer that checks the necessary boxes: there are more schoolchildren visiting the nurses compared to ten years ago, but we have to assume that the information in the response is accurate for it to be so. Green light.
(D)
The chemicals are not commonly usedAnalysis: Who cares how often the chemicals are used, particularly in houses and apartment buildings--non-school locations? I will be honest in saying that as soon as I had decided on (C), I quickly skimmed this choice and (E) and confirmed (C). Why must we assume that the chemicals in question are applied less commonly in locations other than the school for the argument to work? This is a clear
distraction, nothing more. Red light.
(E) Children
do not make up a larger proportion of Renston's populationAnalysis: Whether children do or do not make up a larger proportion of the general population, it is not necessarily the case that more of them, a greater proportion, would experience allergic reactions to "the chemicals" used in the schools. You should know from the Quant sections that
proportions without context are meaningless. We could use numbers to disprove such an assumption, as in the following exercise:
Allergic Schoolchildren (10 years ago)2/10 (100 total children in Renston, pop. 10,000)
Allergic Schoolchildren (present)3/10 (100 total children in Renston, pop. 9,000)
Okay, so the target group represents a higher proportion of Renston's decreasing population. So what? Why would their numbers have to have increased relative to the population of the entire town in order for the argument to hold its weight? We could just as easily have held the population steady at 10,000, which would show that whether or not the children make up a larger proportion of the total population of Renston, the fact of the matter is that a larger proportion of them is now visiting school nurses due to allergic reactions to certain chemicals. Thus, choice (E) has no bearing on the question, but it is trickier to navigate than some of the other choices. Yellow light.
Guessing: Choices (A), (B), and (D) all represent easy targets or
red light answers. The first option, (A), leaves out the target group, the schoolchildren, and offers up information on nurses instead; meanwhile, (B) and (D) both go left of center without ever getting off the ground, providing information that is
not related to the argument--other substances, other locations. (C) discusses the target group and offers a reasonable explanation as to why a greater proportion of schoolchildren
would be visiting the nurses. Choice (E), although attractive at first glance, could go either way with actual numbers standing in to create proportions. At least the answer choices should be whittled down to (C) or (E), and with that kind of 50/50 on your plate,
always look to disprove any part of one response or the other, rather than choose what feels better or resembles the wording of the paragraph more.
Happy studies.
- Andrew
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