Question
Over the past seven years, private college tuition rates have increased, resulting in a large decrease in private college attendance across the country. Private college revenues, however, have progressively increased in each of the seven years during this period, and researches predict further increases in the years to come.
Which of the following, if true, offers the best explanation for the situation described above?
Which of the following, if true, offers the best explanation for the situation described above?
Answer: Option D
:
D
Here we have a specific and common kind of number question: an increase/decrease problem. The author discusses two simultaneous trends that might seem to contradict one another. Tuition has increased at private universities, leading to a decrease in enrollment - so far that's logical. However, revenue at these universities has continued to increase despite the decreased enrollment. The correct answer must offer some source of revenue that more than compensates for the decrease in revenue created by the lower enrollment. That's where (D), the correct answer, fits in: If the tuition hikes have brought in more revenue than the loss of enrollment has taken away, then it's easy to see how both trends discussed in the stimulus can simultaneously exist.
Option (A): The frequency with which private schools increase tuition doesn't seem to explain the revenue situation in the stimulus. The relevant fact is that tuitions are increasing, which triggers the rest of the argument. In what specific manner they're increasing is irrelevant.
Option (B) offers an irrelevant distinction between vocational schools and private colleges that doesn't contribute any new information to the stimulus. Vocational schools are outside the scope, which focuses only on the situation related to the decrease in enrollment at private colleges.
Option (C) tellsus what happens to some students who can no longer afford private universities. Their fate, sorry to say, doesn't matter, and again it doesn't add any new information to the scenario. We already know that enrollment decreased; this choice just gives us a human-interest story when we really know that enrollment decreased; this choice just gives us a human-interest story when we really want to know more how it's possible under these circumstances for revenues to actually increase.
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:
D
Here we have a specific and common kind of number question: an increase/decrease problem. The author discusses two simultaneous trends that might seem to contradict one another. Tuition has increased at private universities, leading to a decrease in enrollment - so far that's logical. However, revenue at these universities has continued to increase despite the decreased enrollment. The correct answer must offer some source of revenue that more than compensates for the decrease in revenue created by the lower enrollment. That's where (D), the correct answer, fits in: If the tuition hikes have brought in more revenue than the loss of enrollment has taken away, then it's easy to see how both trends discussed in the stimulus can simultaneously exist.
Option (A): The frequency with which private schools increase tuition doesn't seem to explain the revenue situation in the stimulus. The relevant fact is that tuitions are increasing, which triggers the rest of the argument. In what specific manner they're increasing is irrelevant.
Option (B) offers an irrelevant distinction between vocational schools and private colleges that doesn't contribute any new information to the stimulus. Vocational schools are outside the scope, which focuses only on the situation related to the decrease in enrollment at private colleges.
Option (C) tellsus what happens to some students who can no longer afford private universities. Their fate, sorry to say, doesn't matter, and again it doesn't add any new information to the scenario. We already know that enrollment decreased; this choice just gives us a human-interest story when we really know that enrollment decreased; this choice just gives us a human-interest story when we really want to know more how it's possible under these circumstances for revenues to actually increase.
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