Students from outside the province of Markland, who in any given acade

OFFICIAL EXPLANATION

The correct answer choice is (E)

The stimulus does not contain a conclusion, but it does contain an interesting fact set: “Students from outside the province of Markland, who in any given academic year pay twice as much tuition each as do students from Markland, had traditionally accounted for at least two-thirds of the enrollment at Central Markland College.” This sentence indicates that the non-Marklanders are paying a greater amount of tuition, and they previously accounted for at least 66% of the enrollment. This statement is followed by: “Over the past 10 years academic standards at the college have risen, and the proportion of students who are not Marklanders has dropped to around 40 percent.” This sentence can be deceptive because it contains two ideas that are unrelated and many people assume that the proportion of non-Marklanders has dropped because the academic standards rose. The sentence only states that the non-Marklanders have dropped; not that they dropped because of the raised standards. As you learned from our discussion in this chapter, the fact that the non-Marklanders have dropped in percent does not mean that their actual number has decreased (Misconception #2). The following is an example of how the percent could decrease while numbers could increase:

10 years ago Today
Total number of students at Central Markland 100 200
Number of non-Markland students 66 (66%) 80 (40%)
Number of Markland students 34 (34%) 120 (60%)

Answer choice (A): The stimulus does not cite any reason for why or how the academic standards were increased, so this answer is incorrect.

Answer choice (B): This answer tests your ability to understand the last sentence of the stimulus. As discussed above, the last sentence does not provide a reason for the decline in non-Markland students, so removing the stipulation about the rise in academic standards would not tell us whether non-Marklanders would still be enrolled in the college.

Answer choice (C): This is a difficult answer. If the size of the college stayed the same, then this answer would be correct. But, as shown by the example above, the statement in this answer does not have to be true when the total size of the college changes. In the example, both Markland students and non-Markland student numbers grew.

Answer choice (D): Remember, this is a Must Be True question, so every answer must pass the Fact Test. No information was given about other Markland colleges, so this answer is incorrect.

Answer choice (E): This is the correct answer. If the college’s per capita revenue from tuition remains constant while at the same time the high-tuition paying non-Marklanders have decreased in percentage, the college must have derived new tuition revenue by raising tuition. In other words, when the percentage of non-Marklanders drops, the average tuition per person must also drop because they pay twice as much as the Markland students. In order to keep the per person revenue the same, fees would have to be raised.