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easy E. the rest are too extreme. E works with only what is given. Population of Non Marklanders went down to 40%. It could be because more Marklanders began to attend the school as opposed to a reduction in non Marklanders attendees or vice versa. We cannot say what was responsible for the increased academic standards, so rule that out.
The only thing we can say is there could be tuition increases if per capita revenue remained the same.
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I will stick with E,but I have my doubts since the fee has increased for everyone (Locals and outsiders) how would you justify increase in per capita fee?

Ox + Iy = C
O=outsiders, fee=x
I=Locals, fee=y
O decreases, I increases x and y can both be adjusted to compensate.
C/x+y wouldnt necessarily go up.
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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. 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.
Which one of the following can be properly inferred from the statements above?

(A) If it had not been for the high tuition paid by students from outside Markland, the college could not have improved its academic standards over the past 10 years. => The relation "high tuition/ rising academic standards" is not mentioned above.
(B) If academic standards had not risen over the past 10 years, students who are not Marklanders would still account for at least two-thirds of the college’s enrollment. => nowhere in the statement above, it is said that academic standards could affect the enrollment
(C) Over the past 10 year the number of students from Markland increased and the number of students from outside Markland decreased. => we talk about "proportion" and not "number"
(D) Over the past 10 years academic standards at Central Markland College have risen by more than academic standards at any other college in Markland. => no comparison is made in the initial statement
(E) If the college’s per capita revenue from tuition has remained the same, tuition fees have increased over the past 10 years. => a math question:
capita revenue = x% * 2 *Marklander tuition + (100-x)%* Marklander tuition = (1 + x%)* Marklander Tuition
=> since x decreases, capita revenue does not change, then Tuition must increase
answer E
Well, of courses we don't write down this equation during the test :) , just reason it intuitively
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The catch in E is that the per capita revenue remaining the same. Even If the absolute number of non- Marklanders increases, despite the percentage coming down, (which is possible) the per capita revenue will not rise. This is because, for every higher contribution by the non- Marklanders, there is a much more increase in the number of the Marklanders, who contribute half of their counterparts, thus pulling down the average.

The best way is to a make a simulated arithmetic, and one can see that whatever the situation, the per capita revenue will not remain the same in the new permutation, unless there is an actual rise.

E is the safest inference
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Can somebody please explain why is C not right. If the proportion of outsiders has decresed then can't it be inferred that number of outsiders has decreased .

Posted from my mobile device
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Can somebody please explain why is C not right. If the proportion of outsiders has decresed then can't it be inferred that number of outsiders has decreased .

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A decrease in proportion does not imply a decrease in numbers.

Say there used to be 100 students - 70 outsiders (70%) and 30 Marklanders (30%)

Say now there are 500 students - 200 outsiders (40%) and 300 Marklanders (60%)

So though the proportion of outsiders has decreased from 70% to 40%, their number has actually increased (from 70 to 200) because total number of students has increased. Since we know nothing about the number of students, we cannot say what happened to the actual number of outsiders in the last 10 years.
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C Vs E:

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.
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.

Which one of the following can be properly inferred from the statements above?

c) Over the past 10 years, the number of students from Markland increased and the number of students from outside Markland decreased.
>> Since number of students not given we cant infer that. This is a common trick in such questions. From % we cant infer if the actual number increased or decreased.

e) If the college’s per capita revenue from tuition has remained the same, tuition fees have increased over the past 10 years.
PCR = avg fees from all students remained constant
Now to keep the figure constant when the proportion of high paying students have decreased, we need to increases the fees.

So answers seems to be E.
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My option will be E. Really good question. Took me around 3.5 min, but in the end worth answering such a nice question.

My though process...

1. Option A: The argument does not support this. Perhaps non Marklanders are too ambitious and took more modules and hence their tuition fee was higher.

2. Option B: The argument does not support this ideology.

3. Option C: Clearly out of scope.

4. Option D: Clearly out of scope because comparing with other colleges in Markland.

5. Option E: College percapita income remained the same, then tution fee must be higher than previous year. [Since non marklanders were paying more tuition fee, but thier number has significantly dropped].

Please let me know your thoughts. Please post OA.

souvik101990
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. 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. Which one of the following can be properly inferred from the statements above?

a) If it had not been for the high tuition paid by students from outside Markland, the college could not have improved its academic standards over the past 10 years.

b) If academic standards had not risen over the past 10 years, students who are not Marklanders would still account for at least two-thirds of the college’s enrollment.

c) Over the past 10 years, the number of students from Markland increased and the number of students from outside Markland decreased.

d) Over the past 10 years, academic standards at Central Markland College have risen by more than academic standards at any other college in Markland.

e) If the college’s per capita revenue from tuition has remained the same, tuition fees have increased over the past 10 years.
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noboru
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. 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 one has really been a sitter for me ( And trust me the more challenging the game becomes the better it feels)

noboru
Students from outside the province of Markland, had traditionally accounted for at least two-thirds of the enrollment at Central Markland College

Situation 10 Yrs ago -

Total students = 60
Non Markland = 40 ( Considering 2/3rd)
Markland = 20

noboru
who in any given academic year pay twice as much tuition each as do students from Markland

Let the tution fees 10 years ago be as follows -

Non Markland = 20
Non Markland = 10

Total tution fees collected by Central Markland College was -

(20*40) + (10*20) = 1000

Per Capita Revenue is 1000/60 =>16.67

noboru
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.

Situation 10 Yrs ago -

Total students = 60
Non Markland = 16 ( 40% )
Markland = 44

Considering tution fees and No of students remaining the same

Tution fees now -

Non Markland = 20
Markland = 10


Total tution fees collected by Central Markland College was -

(20*16) + (10*34) = 660


Per Capita Revenue is 660/60 =>11.00

Which one of the following can be properly inferred from the statements above?

(A) If it had not been for the high tuition paid by students from outside Markland, the college could not have improved its academic standards over the past 10 years.

We can not infer anything about the standard of education because nothing has been explicitly mentioned in the stimulus.

(B) If academic standards had not risen over the past 10 years, students who are not Marklanders would still account for at least two-thirds of the college’s enrollment.

We can not infer anything about the standard of education because nothing has been explicitly mentioned in the stimulus.

(C) Over the past 10 year the number of students from Markland increased and the number of students from outside Markland decreased.

This might seem a probable answer choice but be very very careful this statement talks about " the number of students " and the passage keeps on mentioning Percentage - Increase/Decrease in %gae doesn't mean a corresponding increase/Decrease in number.

(D) Over the past 10 years academic standards at Central Markland College have risen by more than academic standards at any other college in Markland.

We can not infer anything about the standard of education.

(E) If the college’s per capita revenue from tuition has remained the same, tuition fees have increased over the past 10 years.

This sounds very interesting , lets check.

Per Capita Revenue 10 years ago was 1000/60 =>16.67
Per Capita Revenue now is is 660/60 =>11.00

Now to keep per capita revenue same we must have to increase the tution fees to 1000 now , this will defintely mean a increase in Per capita tution fees.

Hence IMHO (E) :magic
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Let's say there were 100 students enrolled at Central Markland College (hereafter referred to as CMC) and the tuition for residents was $100. Since at least 2/3 of the student body comprised of non-residents who paid double the residents' tuition ($200), let's suppose, for the purpose of simplification, that 70% of the student body were non-residents.

In sum, 10 years ago, we had 30 resident students each of whom paid $100 and 70 non-resident students each of whom paid double that amount, i.e. $200.

To compute the average tuition (tuition revenue received by CMC per head) = ( $100 x 30 + $200 x 70 ) / 100 = $170 per capita or per student

After 10 years, IF CMC is still earning per capita revenue of $170 and that the proportion of nonresidents has decreased to 40%, it MUST BE TRUE that the amount of contribution by residents has increased.

Let me give you another hypothetical situation.

After 10 years, the number of student body has increased. Say, the number of residents and nonresidents have BOTH increased to a total of 200. Here, since nonresidents make up 40% of the student body, there are 80 of them and the rest are residents (160 students).
See how (C) doesn't have to be true here for nonresident students' proportion to decrease relative to that of the residents?

So if the college is still earning $170 from each student, let's denote the new tuition as NT and see if NT equals $100 (which was the tuition for residents a decade ago).

170 = { ( NT x # of residents ) + ( double NT x # of nonresidents) } / new total number of students

170 x 200 = ( NT x 120 ) + ( 2NT x 80 )
34000 = 280NT
New Tuition (NT) = $121.something
So the tuition has indeed increased! (by $21 in our hypothetical example)
Hence E is correct.
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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. 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.

Which one of the following can be properly inferred from the statements above?

(A) If it had not been for the high tuition paid by students from outside Markland, the college could not have improved its academic standards over the past 10 years. - WRONG. No such relation is established in the passage or inferable from passage.

(B) If academic standards had not risen over the past 10 years, students who are not Marklanders would still account for at least two-thirds of the college’s enrollment. - WRONG. No such relation is established in the passage or inferable from passage.

(C) Over the past 10 year the number of students from Markland increased and the number of students from outside Markland decreased. - WRONG. Big NO when percentage is mentioned in passage and number in the choice.

(D) Over the past 10 years academic standards at Central Markland College have risen by more than academic standards at any other college in Markland. - WRONG. Irrelevant.

(E) If the college’s per capita revenue from tuition has remained the same, tuition fees have increased over the past 10 years. - CORRECT. POE leads to E. It can be established that E makes sense as proved in above explanations.

Answer E.
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