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

sauravleo123 While C looks best of the lot, are we not assuming too much to justify the option?

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

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

While C seems better than other choices, it explains only one part of the discrepancy - housework moving up the rank. Shouldn't we try to address both sides of the discrepancy?

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)

Choosing 'C' means that Now they spent much time doing Job which brings down the 'job' category lower in rank.

Posted from my mobile device

I think that assuming retired people do nothing but housework is absurd. What is retired people are more rich than before and now they do not need to do housework than they did before.
This assumption is a bit far.

Is this an official question lol

Actually, I am not sure if Option (B) can be so easily rejected because it was even within my pre-thinking if the survey represent all the categories. But let me provide my point of view.

There are many other categories like sleeping, exercising or self as whole. So, 25 years ago, those people were young and didn't require more than 6 hours of sleep and later they started spending too much time in sleeping, probably 10 hours, because of age. That simply means that they have to cut out these extra hours from some categories and could be one of those 4 categories, resulting in housework becoming the top of the list. But, I agree that B does not talk about the trend in the time spent in those time consuming activities, and thus, it does not give clarity on how it fixes the discrepancy.

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. -> Irrelevant.

B) Many of the most time-consuming aspects of people's lives do not appear as categories on either survey. -> "A recent follow-up survey" hints for categories are repeated. Incorrect.

C) Most of those who responded to the follow-up survey have retired in the last twenty-five years. -> So, retired people have moved from other categories of work to "housework". Definitely, it will make housework higher in the list, while housework takes less time. Let's keep it.

D) At the time of the follow-up survey, some of the people surveyed did no housework. -> It will weaken the argument. Incorrect.

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. -> then why the discrepancy for housework. Incorrect.

So, I think C.

Hi - screenshot 1

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!

please explain question? what is it saying and what is it asking????

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.

Thank you very much for this detailed explanation. Such minor things("follow-up survey") create a huge difference.

luckyatc

Hi,

I was studying and then going through all the replies by the community and experts and noticed that no one replied to you.

Please note that jaisonsunny77's reply below yours is succinct and apt (below)

"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."

GMATNinja VeritasKarishma
Based on the two yellow highlight only -- When I read the two yellow highlights, why can't I assume the total number of hours in absolute terms towards household work has INCREASED over the past 25 years ?

Seeing the OA solutions, it seems like the total number of hours towards HOUSEHOLD work in absolute terms has stayed the same over 25 years or may have declined

Reading the two yellow's I got the impression that perhaps the number of hours towards Household chores HAS GONE UP - not gone down or stayed the same.