Women make up a larger proportion of workers in the information servic

Question

Women make up a larger proportion of workers in the information services industry than they did ten years ago. This is partly shown by the fact that in 1985, only 7 percent of women in the workforce were employed in the information services industry, but in 1995, over 16 percent of women in the workforce were employed in the information services industry.

In evaluating the argument above, it would be most useful to compare 1985 and 1995 with regard to which of the following characteristics?

(A) The percentage of women in the workforce who were not employed in the information services industry

(B) The percentage of women who are now retired who have worked in the information services industry

(C) The percentage of women who have been promoted to managerial positions within the information services industry

(D) The percentage of men in the workforce who were employed in the information services industry

(E) The percentage of men who will soon be eligible for employment in the information services industry

VeritasPrepBrian · Accepted Answer

Great work on this question, everyone. I'll agree wholeheartedly that D is the correct answer, and add this:

When statistics are used in CR questions, the statistic given almost always fails to meet the conclusion directly, so focus your attention on the conclusion:

Women make up a higher proportion OF THE INDUSTRY

And see how that conclusion differs from the statistic given:

16% OF WOMEN employees are in that industry

Here, there is a clear distinction. We're looking for the ratio Women-in-the-Industry/Industry, but they give us Women-In-Industry/Total Women. The denominators are off, and we need something that better fits the correct denominator "out of the entire industry".

Train yourself to sniff out those subtle distinctions in wording when you're given statistics on CR problems, because almost always the stats that they provide are just a few degrees off of the statistic needed to draw that conclusion.

x2suresh · Answer

Women: (IS - Information Services)
In 1985 -- 7 % women in IS 93% in other sectors.
In 1995 -- >16% woman in IS <84% in other sectors

Assume Men Proporation can have two possibilities
(Case 1)
In 1985 -- 10 % men in IS 90% in other sectors.
In 1995 -- >35% men in IS <65% in other sectors
(OR)
(Case 2)
In 1985 -- 10 % men in IS 90% in other sectors.
In 1995 -- >15% men in IS <85% in other sectors

Conclucsion :
Women make up a larger proportion of workers in the information services industry than they did ten years ago.

Case 1 Attacks the conclusion: because men make up a larger proporation workers than women.
Case 2 Supports the conclusion: because men smaller proporation workers than women.

So Option D most usefull to evaluate the above arugment.

tarek99 · Answer

but I still have a question regarding your explanation. I don't think that the argument is making any comparison between men and women. the argument is only focusing on women by comparing the proportion of women in 1995 to the proportion of women in 1985. Whether men have increased or decreased, I think that's not relevant. Maybe i'm wrong?? but I honestly don't see the point of looking at men because the number of men can still go either up or down, know what I mean? i'm really sorry for troubling you, but could you elaborate more?
thanks

grepro · Answer

Tarek,

This is why i chose D.

The first line of the argument says

"Women make up a larger proportion of workers in the information services industry than they did ten years ago."

One proportion on a whole cannot increase unless the other proportion of the whole is either decreasing or increasing at a slower rate than the first one.

So to find if the proportion of women has increased we need to know about the proportion increase in men.

tarek99 · Answer

But then the argument says that the percentage of ALL women in the workforce. So let's say that, for example, 7 percent of the women in the labor force were employed in the service industry in 1985. Then in 1995, 17 percent of the women in the labor force were employed in the service industry. Notice, the argument never said that 17 percent of the labor force IN THE SERVICE INDUSTRY are women. Rather, it said that 17 percent of ALL the WOMEN in ALL the LABOR FORCE are women. Wouldn't it make sense to see whether the total population of all the women in ALL the labor force increased or decreased? because that can truly determine whether the number of women in the service industry truly increased.

stopper5 · Answer

Tarek, while I choose D first, I agree with you that the answer D does need an extra assumption.

The "proportion" here relates to the mix of men and women:

Women make up a larger proportion of workers in the IT sector (than men do).

Assumption: the number of female workers and male workers did not decrease (at least stayed the same) from 1985 to 1995

1985: 7% of women workers were in IT (say 7 of all 100 female workers)
1995: 16% of women workers were in IT (say 16 of all 100 female workers)

1985: 10% of men workers were in IT (say 10 of all 100 male workers)
1995: 34% of men workers were in IT (say 34 of all 100 male workers)
 
1985: 7female, 10male - 35% of workers in IT were women
1995: 16female, 34male - 32% of workers in IT were women.

You need the % of men in the industry to get the above red portion

Now for ALL of this to make sense, the  assumption  needs to be made that the general number of female and male workers was on an upward trend.

vaibhavtripathi · Answer

We dont really have to get confused here. The argument TELLS us that:
(a) of all the women there were in workforce in 1985, 7% were in IS (say 21 out of 300).
(b) of all the women there were in workforce in 1995, (atleast)17% were in IS (say 170 out of 1000, or 17 out of 100. Note the argument never said the absolute number of women in workforce increased).

The argument asks us whether this change in headcount actually reflects a change in contribution in IS industry. To answer this we must know whether the number of men in IS increased, decreased, or remained constant.

D is clear winner.

Zatarra · Answer

It is a straightforward application of mathematics / Data sufficiency. If someone were to tell you 
Q)Is it possible to calculate the percentage of women in the Information service sector?
1)7 % of women in all the sectors work in the information service in 1985
2) 16% of women in all the sectors work in the information service 1995
If u were to combine the two premises,

To calculate the percentage of women in the Information services sector, you have to use the formula,
portion of women in information services= no. of women in information services/(no. of women in information services +  no. of men in information services )

b9n920 · Answer

Women make up a larger proportion of workers in the information services industry than they did ten years ago. This is partly shown by the fact that in 1985, only 7 percent of women in the workforce were employed in the information services industry, but in 1995, over 16 percent of women in the workforce were employed in the information services industry.

In evaluating the argument above, it would be most useful to compare 1985 and 1995 with regard to which of the following characteristics?

(A) The percentage of women in the workforce who were not employed in the information services industry
(B) The percentage of women who are now retired who have worked in the information services industry
(C) The percentage of women who have been promoted to managerial positions within the information services industry
(D) The percentage of men in the workforce who were employed in the information services industry
(E) The percentage of men who will soon be eligible for employment in the information services industry

D  is the clear winner given the choices. BUT it is not possible to establish the conclusion based only on the percentage of men in the workforce who were employed in IS.
Again, it's clearly understood that we don't need to prove the conclusion. Our task is to choose the BEST answer that MAY be useful in making the conclusion more believable.

Thanks.

Bunuel · Answer

PRINCETON REVIEW OFFICIAL EXPLANATION:

D

This question asks what additional information we need to make the argument’s conclusion true, so it’s asking for an assumption. The author concludes that women make up a larger proportion of the workers in the information services industry based on his premise that a larger percentage of all women in the workforce are employed in this industry. In order for this conclusion to be true, we need to know that the corresponding percentage for men has shrunk, or that the increase in women in the information services sector is not due to growth across the entire workforce.

(A) No. Since we know that 7 percent of women in the workplace were in the information services industry, we already know that 93 percent were not in it, so this answer choice doesn’t give us any new information.

(B) No. Retired women are out of scope.

(C) No. The specific positions of women in the industry are out of scope.

(D) Yes. If we know the percentage of male workers, we can tell whether the entire workforce has grown, or whether the corresponding percentage of men in the information services industry has shrunk.

(E) No. This is out of scope. We need to know what’s happening now, not what will soon be happening.

JonShukhrat · Answer

Hi  MartyTargetTestPrep ,

Could you, please, help clarify my doubt regarding the wording of the below part of the argument?

Due to the red part, the sentence seems to be comparing  the percentage of women now  with  the percentage of women ten years ago . For example, now women constitute 20% of workers in the information services industry, but before they constituted 15 %. Is my understanding correct?

To my mind, this sentence doesn't seem to be comparing women with men, does it?

Thank you beforehand!

MartyTargetTestPrep · Answer

Your analysis is correct. That sentence expresses a comparison between the proportion of workers currently represented by women and the proportion of workers represented by women ten years ago.

We can of course tell from what the sentence says that the proportion represented by men changed as well. All the same, the sentence itself does not express a comparison of women with men. It compares only the proportions represented by women.

JonShukhrat · Answer

Hats off to you for such a quick and clear reply  MartyTargetTestPrep ,

Hence, isn't the below part of the OE incorrect?

That part seems to be comparing women with men, doesn't it?

MartyTargetTestPrep · Answer

Well, not exactly. While the expression "larger proportion" is an incomplete comparison, and so the sentence does not clearly express what the proportion is larger than, I think that one can reasonably conclude that the OE is meant to convey that women make up a proportion larger than the proportion that women made up in the past.

All the same, clearly the comparison that you highlighted is incomplete, and so, yes, it could be perceived as comparing the proportion represented by women with the proportion represented by men.

Pritishd · Answer

I am attaching sample data that will help understand why option D i.e. population of men in the industry helps us evaluate the argument. To keep things simple, I have not retained the lines for 'Total men in the workforce' and then derived the men in the info. services industry.

Hope it helps.

gvij2017 · Answer

I have made a simple statement for this problem.

"Workers in information service industry= X" is basis for comparison.
 
1985(%w+ %m) = 1995(%w+ %m)= 100% of workers in information service industry.

Conclusion proportion (percent) of woman in X increased. 
means 1985(%w) < 1995(%w)

then %m in X in 1985 and 1995 will tell us clear picture.

If %m increased, then conclusion is wrong. %w will go down. 
if %m decreased, then conclusion is acceptable. % w will go up.

Please appraise my understanding!

Ankit__7182 · Answer

Actually, the reasoning totally depends on male percentage in the pie to conclude that that women make up a proportion larger than the proportion that women made up in the past.

Bro102 · Answer

As much i take from this question it ask about a parametere to compare so A B and C are not good to choose as ans between D and E is telling men who will soon eligible it is cleary wrong so D is good chance its compare between man and woman count in the industry

Women make up a larger proportion of workers in the information servic

Prep Toolkit

Top 5 GMAT Debrief Videos

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

GMAT Critical Reasoning (CR) Questions

Women make up a larger proportion of workers in the information servic

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