In our society, the teacher-student ratio was 1:50 back in 1978. Today

Question

In our society, the teacher-student ratio was 1:50 back in 1978. Today the ratio is 1:100. The total student population has increased significantly over the past 30 years.

Which conclusion can you draw from the above statement?

A. Increase in the number of students caused this situation.
B. Proportionately less increase in the number of teachers was responsible for the situation.
C. Not many new educational institutions came up during the period.
D. Both increase in the number of students and proportionately less increase in the number of teachers caused this situation.
E. Poor teaching method was responsible for this situation.

daagh · Accepted Answer

In our society, the teacher-student ratio was 1:50 back in 1978. Today the ratio is 1:100. The total student population has increased significantly over the past 30 years.

Which conclusion can you draw from the above statement?

A. Increase in the number of students caused this situation.
B. Proportionately less increase in the number of teachers was responsible for the situation.
C. Not many new educational institutions came up during the period.
D. Both increase in the number of students and proportionately less increase in the number of teachers caused this situation.
E. Poor teaching method was responsible for this situation.

The OA 'D' could be disputed. If one were to follow the essentials of CR, a conclusion can be drawn only from the premises. In the context, the premises only mention about the number of students going up and the worsening ratio. They do not talk about the number of teachers at all, whether going up or going down proportionately or disproportionately. Therefore, choices B and D cannot be concluded per se. We must never use real life situation or worldly - wiseness in conclusions questions.

I feel A is the maximum that we can conclude in the given question

ravishekar · Answer

GMATNinja  can you please help resolve the doubt...I do feel the Answer is A.

aditiphadnis · Answer

Information : - In our society, the teacher-student ratio was 1:50 back in 1978. Today the ratio is 1:100.
 Premise - The total student population has increased significantly over the past 30 years.
 What can be the most appropriate conclusion?

Option A says
A. Increase in the number of students caused this situation.

And Option D says- Both increase in the number of students and proportionately less increase in the number of teachers caused this situation.

If number of teachers also increase in the same proportion, then the ratio will still be 1:50. The argument will be incomplete. If we say students increased a lot more than the number of teachers, only then we can arrive at a proper conclusion.

So Option D is a better Conclusion

jackinthebox2020 · Answer

Why i chose D over B ( & A)?

Let's say in 1978 there were 50 students, therefore according to the ratio there would be 1 teacher. 
Now in 2008, the ratio is 1:100 so let's assume that there are 200 students therefore there would be 2 teachers ( 2:200)

A. Increase in the number of students caused this situation- sure it did but this doesn't say anything about the teachers

I was between B and D eventually chose D, but here's why i did not pick B:

B. Proportionately less increase in the number of teachers was responsible for the situation.

Same reasoning as why A is not the answer, B only talks about teachers.

D. Both increase in the number of students and proportionately less increase in the number of teachers caused this situation.

This addresses both the increase in students and proportionately less increase in the number of teachers ( 1: 50 @ 1978 --> 1: 100  2008  ( 2:200))

sony1000 · Answer

D looks good, but what if the number of teaches remains steady or increases just a bit much less in comparison to student increase , could that still provides us with the same ratio of 1:100.

KhayatiK · Answer

Bunuel  and other experts : referring to the "Most helpful reply" by the expert - Mr.Daagh , his post says answer to be "A", i too reached the same answer basis the de-facto approach for Main point questions. but the "show answer" displays option D. checking if option D was a typo or so and wud it be option A therefore.?

Sajjad1994 · Answer

Hi KhayatiK

The official answer is indeed  (D)  there is no typo. I think  (A)  and  (D)  both could be the answers because the premise holds true in two scenerios.

1. Number of teachers stayed same while students doubled (students increase, teachers unchanged).
2. Number of teachers increased, but not as much as students increased (both increased, but students increased more than teachers).

In this case Both  (A)  and  (D)  are true.

In our society, the teacher-student ratio was 1:50 back in 1978. Today

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In our society, the teacher-student ratio was 1:50 back in 1978. Today

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