A recent survey conducted in one North American city reveale

This topic has expert replies
Moderator
Posts: 426
Joined: Tue Aug 22, 2017 8:48 pm
Followed by:1 members
A recent survey conducted in one North American city revealed widespread concern about the problems faced by teenagers today. Seventy percent of the adults surveyed said they would pay higher taxes for drug treatment programs, and 60 percent said they were willing to pay higher taxes to improve the city's schools. Yet in a vote in that same city, a proposition to increase funding for schools by raising taxes failed by a narrow margin to win majority approval.

Which one of the following factors, if true, would LEAST contribute to an explanation of the discrepancy described above?

(A) The survey sample was not representative of the voters who voted on the proposition.
(B) Many of the people who were surveyed did not respond truthfully to all of the questions put to them.
(C) The proposition was only part of a more expensive community improvement program that voters had to accept or reject in total.
(D) A proposition for increasing funds for local drug treatment centers also failed to win approval.
(E) The proposition to raise taxes for schools was couched in terminology that many of the voters found confusing.

What's the best approach to determine the answer? Can any experts help?

User avatar
Legendary Member
Posts: 2131
Joined: Mon Feb 03, 2014 9:26 am
Location: https://martymurraycoaching.com/
Thanked: 955 times
Followed by:140 members
GMAT Score:800

by MartyMurray » Fri Nov 03, 2017 11:48 pm
ardz24 wrote:What's the best approach to determine the answer? Can any experts help?
Check what each of the statements says to see whether:

- it would have an effect on voting on a tax increase for funding schools.

- it would explain why people did not vote for the increase even though the majority responding to the survey had said that they were in favor of such an increase.

(A) This could explain the difference. The survey did not accurately capture the picture of voter opinions.

(B) This could explain the difference. People may have said that they were for increasing taxes to increase funding for schools, while in reality they were not.

(C) This could affect how people would vote. While they may have been in favor of increasing taxes to increase funding for schools, they may not have been for the entire proposal presented to them.

(D) There is no clear reason to believe that the way voters voted on another proposal would either affect their votes on the tax increase for school funding proposal or explain why they voted against it. So, this choice is our answer.

(E) This could have had an effect on how people voted. Voters who were for such a tax increase may have voted against it because they were too confused by the language of what they were presented to understand what they were voting on.

The correct answer is D.
Marty Murray
Perfect Scoring Tutor With Over a Decade of Experience
MartyMurrayCoaching.com
Contact me at [email protected] for a free consultation.

User avatar
GMAT Instructor
Posts: 555
Joined: Wed Oct 04, 2017 4:18 pm
Thanked: 180 times
Followed by:12 members

by EconomistGMATTutor » Tue Nov 14, 2017 1:10 pm
The discrepancy:
1) 60 percent of surveyed adults in one city said they were willing to pay higher taxes to improve the city's schools. BUT . . .
2) A proposition to increase funding for schools by raising taxes failed to win majority approval.

Your job is to explain how both of these statements could be true. Actually, since this is a least question, you need to identify 4 choices that explain how they could both be true, leaving you with one choice that does not provide an explanation.

The correct choice is D. Notice that the two statements above have nothing to do with the drug treatment issue. They're not part of the apparent discrepancy. Choice D focuses on this irrelevant issue. Since it is irrelevant, it is the correct choice.

Choice A does help explain the apparent discrepancy. It's not surprising that the actual vote doesn't reflect the survey because the survey sample was not representative of the actual voters.
Choice B explains the discrepancy. If people lied, then there's no surprise that the vote didn't reflect the survey.
Choice C explains the discrepancy. It suggests that how people voted was not entirely dependent on the issue of school funding.
Choice E explains the discrepancy. People might have voted for the proposition if they had understood what it meant.

I'm available if you have further questions.
GMAT Prep From The Economist
We offer 70+ point score improvement money back guarantee.
Our average student improves 98 points.

Image