According to a recent study on financial roles, one-third of high scho

Question

According to a recent study on financial roles, one-third of high school seniors say that they have “significant financial responsibilities.” These responsibilities include, but are not limited to, contributing to food, shelter, or clothing for themselves or their families. At the same time, a second study demonstrates that a crisis in money management exists for high school students. According to this study, 80% of high school seniors have never taken a personal finance class even though the same percentage of seniors has opened bank accounts and one-third of these account holders has bounced a check.

Which of the following conclusions can be properly drawn from the statements above?

A. High schools would be wise to incorporate personal finance classes into their core curricula.

B. At least one-third of high school seniors work part-time jobs after school.

C. The number of high school seniors with significant financial responsibilities is greater than the number of seniors who have bounced a check.

D. Any high school seniors who contribute to food, shelter, or clothing for themselves or their families have significant financial responsibilities.

E. The majority of high school students have no financial responsibilities to their families.

skovinsky · Accepted Answer

Here we have an inference question with lots of facts and figures. Since the answer to an inference question is something that MUST BE TRUE based on one or more of the pieces of information, we think to ourselves "I'll be able to draw concrete conclusions from the numbers, so there's an excellent chance that the correct answer will be a mathematical deduction."

Accordingly, let's start with the choices related to math, (B) and (C).

We know that 1/3 have significant financial responsibilities, but we have no info on how those students fulfil those duties. Accordingly, (B) is not a MUST BE TRUE and can be eliminated.

We know that 1/3 have significant responsibilities; we also know that 80% have opened a bank account and 1/3 of the 80% have bounced a cheque.

Is 1/3 of 100% > than 1/3 of 80%? YES! Accordingly, (C) MUST BE TRUE and is the correct answer to the question.

* * *

When you're practicing, you should review every answer choice to every question. So, although in a test situation we'd choose (C) and move on, let's go into "review mode" and take a quick look at the other 3 choices:

Nothing in the stimulus suggest that this is a MUST BE TRUE - we'd have to know a lot more about the educational system to evaluate the impact of (A) - eliminate.

Just because those who have significant financial responsibilities contribute to food, shelter or clothing, that doesn't mean that the reverse is true. This is more of a classic LSAT trap (reversal of sufficiency and necessity, related to formal logic) than a GMAT one.

Classic scope shift/too extreme trap - we know that 2/3 don't have "significant" financial responsibilities, but that's not the same as "no" financial responsibilities.

Bunuel · Answer

OFFICIAL EXPLANATION

This passage relates information from two studies concerning high school seniors: the first discusses the financial responsibilities of high school seniors, while the second explains the coursework in finance taken by typical high school seniors. On the GMAT, a proper response to a draw-a-conclusion question must be directly supported by evidence from the passage.

(A) Although it might be true that schools would be wise to educate students in finance, this is an opinion; it doesn't necessarily need to follow from the given evidence. A conclusion must be directly supported by evidence from the passage without any additional information or assumptions.

(B) The fact that one-third of high school seniors claim “significant financial responsibilities” to their families does not necessarily mean that these same students work “part-time jobs after school.” There are many possible ways that these students might earn money for their families. If they do work, they might work on weekends or over the summer, for example.

(C) CORRECT.  The first study states that one-third of all high school seniors have significant financial responsibilities to their families. The second study states that 80% of seniors have opened a bank account, and of this 80%, one-third has bounced a check. The number of seniors that has bounced a check (one-third of 80%) is fewer than the number of seniors with significant financial responsibilities to their families (one-third of 100%).

(D) The passage states that certain high school seniors who contribute to the food, shelter, or clothing for themselves or their families rate themselves as having significant financial responsibilities. This does not mean that any high school senior who contributes to these categories has significant financial responsibilities.

(E) The passage states that one-third of high school seniors say that they have “significant financial responsibilities.” This in no way indicates that the other two-thirds have “no” responsibilities. Because no information is given about the other two-thirds of the students, a reasoned conclusion cannot be drawn about them.

Wayxi · Answer

The answer is C.

A. Opinion
B. Out of Scope
C. Correct. Given from arguement, 1/3 of students have significant financial responsibilities. 1/3 of 80% of students have bounced a check. Therefore high school seniors with significant financial responsibilties are greater.
D. The passage lists these as an example of significant financial responsibilities. Not that these actions lead to significant financial responsibilities
E. Passage talks about  significant  ifnancial responsibilites.

greatps24 · Answer

According to a recent study on financial roles, one-third of high school seniors say that they have “significant financial responsibilities.” These responsibilities include, but are not limited to, contributing to food, shelter, or clothing for themselves or their families. At the same time, a second study demonstrates that a crisis in money management exists for high school students. According to this study, 80% of high school seniors have never taken a personal finance class even though the same percentage of seniors has opened bank accounts and one-third of these account holders has bounced a check.

Which of the following conclusions can be properly drawn from the statements above?

A. High schools would be wise to incorporate personal finance classes into their core curricula.  OFS

B. At least one-third of high school seniors  work part-time jobs  after school.  OFS

C. The number of high school seniors with significant financial responsibilities is greater than the number of seniors who have bounced a check.

D. Any high school seniors who contribute to food, shelter, or clothing for themselves or their families have significant financial responsibilities.
 Tricky option. Passage does mention about this but in addition it is also mentioned  but are not limited to

E. The majority of high school students have no financial responsibilities to their families.
 Tricky option. Passage states:  one-third of high school seniors say that they have “ significant  financial responsibilities.”  Word  significant  is key to reject this option

Therefore C.

vad3tha · Answer

I choose C, agree with the explanations written so far. One question though, how can you be sure that the number of high school seniors questioned from first study equals to the number of high school seniors from the second study.

chelawatrishabh · Answer

C option say number of students but number of students is not mentioned. Only % is mentioned. Need more clarity on this.

Skywalker18 · Answer

Hi chelawatrishabh , We can infer actual number from percentage because the group consists of high school students only. The number of high school seniors with significant financial responsibilities = 1/3 of total students = 33.33% of Total high school seniors The number of high school seniors who have bounced a check. = number of high school seniors with bank accounts * 1/3 who have bounced a check = (80% of total students)/3 = 26.67% of Total high school seniors Hope this helps!!

vishalsinghvs08 · Answer

I am not sure how can we infer the OA

There is no mention in the passage that the sample size is same for both the studies. Am i missing something here?

MartyMurray · Answer

The idea is that the survey results indicate what high school seniors in general have going on.

So, the idea is that the results of the first survey indicate that 1/3 of ALL high school seniors have significant financial responsibilities, and the results of the second survey indicate that 80 percent of ALL high school seniors have never taken a personal finance class even though the same percentage of ALL seniors have opened bank accounts and one-third of these account holders have bounced a check.

That said, survey results don't indicate what "must be true." So, we can't really "properly infer" the OA from the statements in the passage. Rather, the OA is a conclusion that's supported by the passage.

Still, since the OA is the only choice that's logically supported by the passage, we can choose the OA and get this question correct.

vishalsinghvs08 · Answer

Thank you, sir. I guess going forward I will stick to this rule
1. For conclusion questions, Find what is supported, not what must be true. Room for slight lee-way
2. For Inference, we find what must-be-true based on the passage. Should be dead close to what can be inferred from the passage, with no external assumptions.

Is my understanding correct here? Please and thank you

MartyMurray · Answer

Yes, your understanding is correct.

shvm_sin7 · Answer

Hi I have a doubt regarding this? How can we assume that both the studies had the same sample size of students along with the uniform representation of the entire population of High school Students? Because there is nothing written in the passage that states the studies were done for the same sample size according to me

DmitryFarberMPrep · Answer

shvm_sin7

We don't need to know anything about the sample size, because the premises don't say anything about a sample. They say that these fractions and percents are of ALL high schoolers. Our job is to believe the premises and see what follows from them. Could these premises be a bit flawed or incompatible because they will inevitably have been drawn from samples that may not match, or that may inaccurately represent the overall population? Sure, but we don't have to worry about that at all, since the premises assure us that the figures cover the whole population. If they had said something about, say, 1/3 of students in a given sample, *then* we might question whether the figures in the two samples lined up.

bharathhr · Answer

My only concern with this correct option is that are the 2 study done on same group of high school students/seniors with same number of participants in the study.

bharathhr · Answer

MartyMurray

Why is D an incorrect option. then.

MartyMurray · Answer

(D) is not correct because what the passages says is that certain high school seniors who "say that they have 'significant financial responsibilities'” contribute to food, shelter, or clothing for themselves or their families.

So, basically, the passage says that, if someone has "significant financial responsibilities" that person may be "contributing to food, clothing, or shelter."

What (D) says works the opposite way.

(D) means, if someone is "contributing to food, clothing, or shelter," that person has "significant financial responsibilities."

(D) doesn't really follow from what the passage says. After all, one could contribute something financial without having significant financial responsibilities.

ankitray · Answer

As with any GMAT questions, we need to stick to the premise or the question stem provided even for an inference related question. Lets go through the options:

A. High schools would be wise to incorporate personal finance classes into their core curricula. -  No where in the passage this has been suggested. It is given that 80% have never taken a personal finance class but it is not specified whether these would be effective in solving the financial difficulties.
 
B. At least one-third of high school seniors work part-time jobs after school. -  Again, this is not mentioned in the passage.

C. The number of high school seniors with significant financial responsibilities is greater than the number of seniors who have bounced a check. -  It is given in the passage that 33.33% of the students have “significant financial responsibilities.” whereas only 26.67% (1/3 of 80%) have bounced a check. Hence , this is correct option.

D. Any high school seniors who contribute to food, shelter, or clothing for themselves or their families have significant financial responsibilities. -  This is reverse causal trap in GMAT. The passage suggest that anyone suffering from “significant financial responsibilities.” have responsibilities that include, but are not limited to, contributing to food, shelter, or clothing for themselves or their families but reverse is not true wherein anyone with these responsibilites have significant financial responsibilities. Hence , this is incorrect.
 
E. The majority of high school students have no financial responsibilities to their families. -  In the passage, it is mentioned that 33.33% of high school seniors have “significant financial responsibilities.” and have responsibilities which include their families. However, we are not provided information on the remain 66.67% of students. What if they have financial obligations towards their families but don't have “significant financial responsibilities.”

According to a recent study on financial roles, one-third of high scho

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According to a recent study on financial roles, one-third of high scho

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