The proportion of men among students enrolled in nursing or medical as

Question

The proportion of men among students enrolled in nursing or medical assistant programs has increased over the last several decades. For example, in 1965, less than 1 percent of men between the ages of eighteen and twenty-five were enrolled in a nursing or medical assistant program, while in 1995, 4.5 percent of men between the ages of eighteen and twenty-five were enrolled in these programs.

Which of the following statistics, if available for both 1965 and 1995, would be most helpful in evaluating the truth of the comparison presented above?

A. The percentage of men between the ages of eighteen and twenty-five who were not enrolled in nursing or medical assistant programs.

B. The percentage of men between the ages of eighteen and twenty-five who graduated from nursing and medical assistant programs.

C. The percentage of men who, after attending nursing or medical assistant programs, entered these professions.

D. The percentage of women between the ages of eighteen and twenty-five who were enrolled in nursing or medical assistant programs at these same times.

E. The percentage of high school graduates who went on to pursue higher education.

KapTeacherEli · Accepted Answer

Step 1: Identify the question type.

This question type is asking us what information would be useful for evaluating the information here. Kaplan considers this question type to be a hybrid strengthen-weaken problem, and we will act accordingly, analyzing the prompt for its assumptions.

Step 2: Untangle the stimulus.

First, we need to understand the author's conclusion. In this case, it's the first sentence: he is arguing that the proportion of males among nursing students has increased.

Then, we need to pin down his evidence. He bases this claim on two statistics: the percent of men enrolled in nursing school in two different years three decades apart.

Finally, we need to identify the author's assumption--and the key here is a very subtle scope shift. Both his evidence and his conclusion deal with a proportion of men nursing. However, his conclusion is bout the proportion of men that makes up the nursing field, while his evidence is about the proportion of nurses that make up the general population of men!

In other words, he doesn't actually give us any information on the  proportion  within the field of nursing. He tells us only that a larger  number  of a (presumably) larger population of men are nurses.

Step 3: Predict the answer.

So there are more men--does that make up a larger percentage of the whole? Well, we need to know, then, how many women there are. If the number of women has remained constant while the number of men increased, clearly the proportion changed. However, if there are just more nurses--if lots more women are studying nursing in 1965 than in 1995--it's entirely possible the proportion has remained unchanged.

Step 4: Evaluate the answer choices.

We're looking for information on women enrolled in nursing programs, and that's what D offers us.

Dreamy · Answer

D should be the answer

This stimulus says more men has joined for medical assistant program just by quoting the percent of men in total men.

For example,
Men
1965 --- 1% out of 100,000 => 1000
1995 --- 4.5% out of 10,000 => 4500
Women could be - as the stimulus does not say anything about the total population or women population.
1965 --- 100000
1995 --- 10000000

imania · Answer

Yeah , the right answer is D

the best takeaway for problem above is that, increment is in PERCENTAGE does not necessarily lead to increment in numbers and vice versa.

IanStewart · Answer

The wording of the first sentence is wrong (it doesn't correctly describe the proportion it means to describe) so the wording is confusing. The conclusion is supposed to be: the percentage of nursing students who are men is higher now than before. It justifies that conclusion by pointing out that 1% of all men were nursing students in 1965, while 4.5% of all men are nursing students in 1995. But that doesn't necessarily mean that the balance of men and women in these programs has changed - maybe a lot more women are also enrolling in these programs. For example, if there's an equal number of men and women in the country, then it might have been true in 1965 that 1% of men, and 1% of women were in these programs, which would mean that 1/2 of all students were men. Then if in 1995, 4.5% of men and 4.5% of women are in these programs, it would still be true that 1/2 of all students are men, and the conclusion would be false in this scenario.

So we can't evaluate the conclusion unless we know something about the fraction of all women who enrol in these courses, which is why D is the right answer.

So we can't evaluate the conclusion unless we know something about the fraction of all women who enrol in these courses, which is why D is the right answer.

OptimusPrepJanielle · Answer

Q> The proportion of men among students enrolled in nursing or medical assistant programs has increased over the last several decades. For example, in 1965, less than 1 percent of men between the ages of eighteen and twenty-five were enrolled in a nursing or medical assistant program, while in 1995, 4.5 percent of men between the ages of eighteen and twenty-five were enrolled in these programs.

I agree, the wording of this is confusing. We're trying to evaluate if the proportion of men (men to women) is greater in 1995 than 1965.

Which of the following statistics, if available for both 1965 and 1995, would be most helpful in evaluating the truth of the comparison presented above?

A>The percentage of men between the ages of eighteen and twenty-five who were not enrolled in nursing or medical assistant programs.  We're not comparing enrolled to not enrolled.

B>The percentage of men between the ages of eighteen and twenty-five who graduated from nursing and medical assistant programs.  We're not concerned with those who graduated. The area of discussion is enrollment.

C>The percentage of men who, after attending nursing or medical assistant programs, entered these professions.
 Similarly, we're not concerned with what occurred afterwards. 
 D> The percentage of women between the ages of eighteen and twenty-five who were enrolled in nursing or medical assistant programs at these same times.
 To compare male enrollment we absolutely need female enrollment information. 
E>The percentage of high school graduates who went on to pursue higher education.  quite out of scope

arvind910619 · Answer

Imo D
We have to the percentage of women who enrolled in the program because then we can say for sure that the proportion of men enrolled in the program increased or not .
For example let say men =100 increased by 1 percent = 101
and in 1995=105
Women =200
In 1995 =250
so the proportion of women is high .
So we have to know the percentage of women to evaluate the argument .

Pari28 · Answer

The question assumes that that population of men and women in both years is known.

Regards,
Parimal.

Thekingmaker · Answer

Even though it feels like a simple question we have to tread stick grroung everything has some flaws assosiated with it the only option that gives us a chance on deciding on the percentage of the other group the women , when the percentages are calculated the will be obviosly be included therefore the only option that stands out to be D , even though E might give us the total i would D for an answer

Smash those thumbs button for no apparent reason , even at time lifef doesn't make sense ..

Smash those thumbs button for no apparent reason , even at time lifef doesn't make sense ..

VerbalBot · Answer

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The proportion of men among students enrolled in nursing or medical as

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The proportion of men among students enrolled in nursing or medical as

Prep Toolkit

615 to 715 in 15 Days (Ria's Strategies)

More than Quant/Verbal Abilities: Speed vs. Accuracy

745 with Only Self-Prep and GMAT Club

From 555 to 765: 210-point Improvement

Perfect 805 Score Debrief by Julia

My Rewards