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Re: The difference in average annual income in favor of employees who have
[#permalink]
23 May 2022, 06:54
23 May 2022, 06:54
Expert Reply
woohoo921 wrote:
GMATNinja wrote:
Nonktp wrote:
GMATNinja EMPOWERgmatVerbal Could you please help explain why (A) is correct whereas (B) is incorrect?
The key part of the passage that helps answer this question is the hypothesis that increased competition between employers ... drove up income for employees with college degrees. In other words, employers were so keen to give jobs to employees with college degrees that they had to offer higher wages to get people with college degrees to work for them instead of another company.
(B) tells us:
Quote:
(B) The average age of all employees increased slightly during the 1980s.
The argument is about why college graduates wages rose faster than those of non-graduates. (B) gives us information about all employees, but doesn't give us any insight into why college graduates' wages have risen so much faster than the wages of non-graduates.
From this, we can eliminate (B).
Let's take a look at (A):
Quote:
(A) During the 1980s a growing percentage of college graduates, unable to find jobs requiring a college degree, took unskilled jobs.
If there was a growing percentage of college graduates unable to find jobs that required their degree, why did the employers need to compete for their services? If there was less need for employers to compete to employ college graduates then there was no need for them to offer higher wages.
This undermines the explanation given in the passage for the growing wage gap between employees with college degrees and those without. (A) is the answer.
I hope that helps!
GMATNinja
This is very helpful, thank you! To clarify, can you make the argument that Choice A is not airtight? In other words, the growing percentage of college graduates could have still been a very small percentage relative to the overall pool of college graduates who command higher paying jobs. Nevertheless, this is the best answer because it weakens the conclusion to an extent, correct?
As you suggest, just because an answer choice seriously undermines an explanation doesn't mean it totally demolishes that explanation. In this case, as long as we've found the answer choice that undermines the explanation more than all the others, we can be confident it's correct.
That being said, it's hard to imagine how the explanation and answer choice (A) could be true at the same time. The explanation claims there was "increased competition" for employees with college degrees between 1980 and 1990. On the other hand, (A) claims that during that same period, a "growing percentage" of college graduates couldn't find jobs that required a college degree. So even if it were a very small percentage, it's hard to see how that percentage could be "growing" if competition for college graduates was also "increasing."
I hope that helps!
Re: The difference in average annual income in favor of employees who have
[#permalink]
09 Oct 2022, 00:36
09 Oct 2022, 00:36
Dear experts,
I have a question in the correct option (A)
The difference in average annual income in favor of employees who have college degrees, compared with those who do not have such degrees, doubled between 1980 and 1990. Some analysts have hypothesized that increased competition between employers for employees with college degrees drove up income for such employees.
Which of the following, if true, most seriously undermines the explanation described above?
(A) During the 1980s a growing percentage of college graduates, unable to find jobs requiring a college degree, took unskilled jobs.
(B) The average age of all employees increased slightly during the 1980s.
(C) The unemployment rate changed very little throughout the 1980s.
(D) From 1980 to 1990 the difference in average income between employees with advanced degrees and those with bachelor???s degrees also increased.
(E) During the 1980s there were some employees with no college degree who earned incomes comparable to the top incomes earned by employees with a college degree.
the conclusion of the passage is : increased competition between employers for employees with college degrees drove up income for such employees.
(A) does weaken the conclusion because (A) A provides that there are many colleges grads or at least the number of colleges grad are growing up. But doesn't it conflict with the premise : The difference in average annual income in favor of employees who have college degrees, compared with those who do not have such degrees, doubled between 1980 and 1990. ?
If the growing number of grads took the unskilled job, we can expect that the average salary will go down. Thus, the average salary between college grads and non-grad shouldn't be doubled. Why is (A) correct?
I have a question in the correct option (A)
The difference in average annual income in favor of employees who have college degrees, compared with those who do not have such degrees, doubled between 1980 and 1990. Some analysts have hypothesized that increased competition between employers for employees with college degrees drove up income for such employees.
Which of the following, if true, most seriously undermines the explanation described above?
(A) During the 1980s a growing percentage of college graduates, unable to find jobs requiring a college degree, took unskilled jobs.
(B) The average age of all employees increased slightly during the 1980s.
(C) The unemployment rate changed very little throughout the 1980s.
(D) From 1980 to 1990 the difference in average income between employees with advanced degrees and those with bachelor???s degrees also increased.
(E) During the 1980s there were some employees with no college degree who earned incomes comparable to the top incomes earned by employees with a college degree.
the conclusion of the passage is : increased competition between employers for employees with college degrees drove up income for such employees.
(A) does weaken the conclusion because (A) A provides that there are many colleges grads or at least the number of colleges grad are growing up. But doesn't it conflict with the premise : The difference in average annual income in favor of employees who have college degrees, compared with those who do not have such degrees, doubled between 1980 and 1990. ?
If the growing number of grads took the unskilled job, we can expect that the average salary will go down. Thus, the average salary between college grads and non-grad shouldn't be doubled. Why is (A) correct?
Re: The difference in average annual income in favor of employees who have
[#permalink]
27 Oct 2022, 07:24
27 Oct 2022, 07:24
1
Kudos
Expert Reply
Tanchat wrote:
Dear experts,
I have a question in the correct option (A)
The difference in average annual income in favor of employees who have college degrees, compared with those who do not have such degrees, doubled between 1980 and 1990. Some analysts have hypothesized that increased competition between employers for employees with college degrees drove up income for such employees.
Which of the following, if true, most seriously undermines the explanation described above?
(A) During the 1980s a growing percentage of college graduates, unable to find jobs requiring a college degree, took unskilled jobs.
(B) The average age of all employees increased slightly during the 1980s.
(C) The unemployment rate changed very little throughout the 1980s.
(D) From 1980 to 1990 the difference in average income between employees with advanced degrees and those with bachelor???s degrees also increased.
(E) During the 1980s there were some employees with no college degree who earned incomes comparable to the top incomes earned by employees with a college degree.
the conclusion of the passage is : increased competition between employers for employees with college degrees drove up income for such employees.
(A) does weaken the conclusion because (A) A provides that there are many colleges grads or at least the number of colleges grad are growing up. But doesn't it conflict with the premise : The difference in average annual income in favor of employees who have college degrees, compared with those who do not have such degrees, doubled between 1980 and 1990. ?
If the growing number of grads took the unskilled job, we can expect that the average salary will go down. Thus, the average salary between college grads and non-grad shouldn't be doubled. Why is (A) correct?
I have a question in the correct option (A)
The difference in average annual income in favor of employees who have college degrees, compared with those who do not have such degrees, doubled between 1980 and 1990. Some analysts have hypothesized that increased competition between employers for employees with college degrees drove up income for such employees.
Which of the following, if true, most seriously undermines the explanation described above?
(A) During the 1980s a growing percentage of college graduates, unable to find jobs requiring a college degree, took unskilled jobs.
(B) The average age of all employees increased slightly during the 1980s.
(C) The unemployment rate changed very little throughout the 1980s.
(D) From 1980 to 1990 the difference in average income between employees with advanced degrees and those with bachelor???s degrees also increased.
(E) During the 1980s there were some employees with no college degree who earned incomes comparable to the top incomes earned by employees with a college degree.
the conclusion of the passage is : increased competition between employers for employees with college degrees drove up income for such employees.
(A) does weaken the conclusion because (A) A provides that there are many colleges grads or at least the number of colleges grad are growing up. But doesn't it conflict with the premise : The difference in average annual income in favor of employees who have college degrees, compared with those who do not have such degrees, doubled between 1980 and 1990. ?
If the growing number of grads took the unskilled job, we can expect that the average salary will go down. Thus, the average salary between college grads and non-grad shouldn't be doubled. Why is (A) correct?
First, you're correct that we should take the premise of the question as true. In other words, the difference between the income of employees with and without college degrees really did double between 1980 and 1990.
Now, you raise an interesting question: if a growing percentage of college graduates couldn't find jobs that required college degrees, would that mean their incomes went down? Unfortunately, the question doesn't provide enough information to answer this question. They definitely could go down. On the other hand, if some unskilled jobs paid more than jobs that required college degrees, incomes of college graduates could certainly go up. Either way, with the information we're given, we really can't say.
Luckily, however, we don't need to answer that question. We know the premise has to be true, so the only question we need to answer is how does (A) affect the conclusion. And keep in mind that we won't need any outside knowledge to answer the question. Everything we need has to be contained in the question itself.
So how does (A) affect the argument? Well, as we've established, we can't really say how it affects overall income among college graduates (though again, that isn't really relevant). But it definitely suggests that competition for employees with college degrees wasn't increasing during the 1980's. And for that reason, (A) undermines the argument.
I hope that helps!
