Twenty-five years ago 2,000 married people were asked to rank four

Question

Twenty-five years ago, 2,000 married people were asked to rank four categories—spouses, friends, jobs, and housework—according to the amount of time each category demanded. A recent follow-up survey indicates that a majority of those same people rank housework higher on the list now than they did twenty-five years ago. Yet most of the respondents also claim that housework has become less demanding of their time over the last twenty-five years.

Which of the following, if true, helps to explain the apparent discrepancy?

A) Some of the people surveyed were married to other people in the survey.

B) Many of the most time-consuming aspects of people's lives do not appear as categories on either survey.

C) Most of those who responded to the follow-up survey have retired in the last twenty-five years.

D) At the time of the follow-up survey, some of the people surveyed did no housework.

E) Many of the respondents to the follow-up survey claim that they now spend much more time with their friends than they did twenty-five years ago.

ID: 500236
CR66900.02

GMATNinja · Accepted Answer

Let's be very clear on what the discrepancy is before we look at why (B) is not the right answer.

The passage tells us that:
  housework ranks higher on a list of time-consuming activities on a recent survey than it did on a survey 25 years ago 
 Most respondents claim they are spending less time on housework than they were previously

So, housework is taking less time  overall  but more time  in comparison  to other items on the list. We're asked to find the answer choice that best explains this discrepancy.

(B) tells us:
 
We're not concerned with time-consuming activities that  do not appear  on either survey. Since these activities do not appear on the survey, they cannot help us explain why housework has  moved up the list  of four categories while  taking less time overall .

Also, we aren't told that there are more categories on the new survey than the old one. By calling it a  "follow-up survey" , the passage suggests the number of categories has stayed the same. The time-consuming activities mentioned in (B) have not been added to the survey, so they cannot tell us why housework has moved up the rankings.

This is why (B) cannot be the answer.

Compare this to (C):
 
If most of those who responded to the follow-up survey have retired since they filled out the initial survey, then they will be spending  far less time on work  than when they filled out the initial survey.

This could  push work down the rankings , as these people will no longer be spending much time working if they're working at all. This means  housework can move up the ranking , even if it takes less time than it did 25 years ago.

(C) helps us explain the discrepancy, so (C) is the answer to this question.

I hope that helps!

KarishmaB · Answer

25 years ago, the survey asked to rank the 4 categories. 
So say if I spend 10 hrs on job, 3 hrs with spouse, 2 hrs with friends and 1 hr for housework, then I would rank them as:

Job
Spouse
Friends
Housework

16 hrs are accounted for here. Whatever I do in the other 8 hrs is irrelevant.

Today, the survey asked to rank again. Now the list has housework at a higher rank than before (so it is not 4th now, say)
But I claim that I put in less time in housework now than I did 25 years ago (so I put only 0.5 hrs say).

The discrepancy is that though I am putting in less time in housework now, it still ranks higher on my list. So there is something that ranked above the housework before which has plummeted now.

A) Some of the people surveyed were married to other people in the survey.
 
Doesn't explain what is different now.

B) Many of the most time-consuming aspects of people's lives do not appear as categories on either survey.
 
Irrelevant. As we discussed above, what we do in our rest of the time is irrelevant. We are only concerned about these 4 categories.

C) Most of those who responded to the follow-up survey have retired in the last twenty-five years.
 
Tells us the category that has plummeted. Job has likely come to 0 hrs and hence housework has moved up in the list even if one is putting less time in it today than 25 years ago.

D) At the time of the follow-up survey, some of the people surveyed did no housework.
 
Anything about 'some of the people' cannot explain the result of the survey.

E) Many of the respondents to the follow-up survey claim that they now spend much more time with their friends than they did twenty-five years ago.
 
This gives us a category that has started taking more time. So friends could have moved up. But it doesn't explain why housework moved up. Something has to move down for housework to move up.

Answer (C)

sauravleo123 · Answer

Twenty-five years ago, 2,000 married people were asked to rank four categories—spouses, friends, jobs, and housework—according to the amount of time each category demanded. A recent follow-up survey indicates that a majority of those same people rank housework higher on the list now than they did twenty-five years ago. Yet most of the respondents also claim that housework has become less demanding of their time over the last twenty-five years.

Which of the following, if true, helps to explain the apparent discrepancy?

A) Some of the people surveyed were married to other people in the survey.

B) Many of the most time-consuming aspects of people's lives do not appear as categories on either survey.

C) Most of those who responded to the follow-up survey have retired in the last twenty-five years.

D) At the time of the follow-up survey, some of the people surveyed did no housework.

E) Many of the respondents to the follow-up survey claim that they now spend much more time with their friends than they did twenty-five years ago.

The moment you read the prompt it comes to mind that most of these people must have retired in 25 years and hence must be doing nothing but house work. Look for a similar choice.
A. Some is a very weak keyword and even then marrying someone else from the survey wont explain the discrepancy.
B. Irrelevant
C. Correct. Exact paraphrase.
D. This also does not explain the discrepancy.
E. Spending time with friends does not explain why housework has moved to rank 1
C is correct

itspC · Answer

TARGET-Explain discrepancy- time demanded is less than time spent (on house works)

A)This does nothing to explain the discrepancy.
B)Then why chosen only housework to be high? why not other categories?

C) This is best among all(Explains discrepancy): retired>>>more time to spend on house works>>even if less demanding they will end up spending more time.

D) Then it would even more to the discrepancy.
E) Time with friends can't explain the discrepancy.

Therefore:  OA:C

jaisonsunny77 · Answer

Which of the following, if true, helps to explain the apparent discrepancy? 
 
A) Some of the people surveyed were married to other people in the survey.  -  irrelevant. 
  
B) Many of the most time-consuming aspects of people's lives do not appear as categories on either survey.  -  this would actually weaken the evidence cited. But, in the context of this passage, (B) is irrelevant.

C) Most of those who responded to the follow-up survey have retired in the last twenty-five years. - if majority of the survey respondents are now retired (at the time of the follow-up survey), then it would mean that they now have more free time to carryout housework; Hence, they would now feel that such housework has become less demanding of time. Therefore,  (C) helps explain the discrepancy.  
  
D) At the time of the follow-up survey, some of the people surveyed did no housework.  -  does not help explain the discrepancy. 
  
E) Many of the respondents to the follow-up survey claim that they now spend much more time with their friends than they did twenty-five years ago.  -  irrelevant

uchihaitachi · Answer

CJandAnish   GMATNinja

Why not B? For example 25 years ago, household was on rank 4. But now, there are 5 categories so the rank of the household is now 3 but still the overall time can be same or less than it was 25 years ago.

jabhatta2 · Answer

Hi - screenshot 1

zoezhuyan · Answer

dear  avigutman , AndrewN , MartyTargetTestPrep ,  GMATNinjaTwo ,

after reading the whole thread, I am still not so sure B is incorrect.
why I thought B is candidate because, 
-in the survey 25years ago ,as regard with the whole day, 24hrs , 10 hours were for 4 categories and 14 hours were for many other aspects. 
-now the 8 hours are for 4 categories , and 16 hours were for others.

so it I possible the rank of housework time move up but fewer hours for housework.

please clarify ,

thanks in advance.

have a nice day

GMATNinja · Answer

As you suggest, we  could  imagine a scenario where non-surveyed activities take up a great  proportion  of people's time than they did twenty-five years ago. But would this really help explain the discrepancy?

Not really. The passage says that housework has become less "demanding of time." This means that it takes less total time, not that it accounts for a smaller  proportion  of the time spent on different activities. So even if the proportion of time spent on housework versus other activities went down, this wouldn't explain why house work has become less "demanding of time."

Additionally, (B) doesn't actually tell us that non-surveyed activities ended up taking more time now than twenty-five years ago, so we can't actually make that assumption. And even if we did, this wouldn't necessarily cause the amount of time spent on housework to go down. In fact, (B) doesn't tell us anything about how much  time  people spent on housework.

Because it doesn't help explain the discrepancy, (B) is incorrect.

I hope that helps!

VerbalBot · Answer

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Twenty-five years ago 2,000 married people were asked to rank four

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