Critical Reasoning

Corporate Officer: Last year was an unusually poor one for our pharmaceutical division, which has traditionally contributed about 70 percent of the corporation's profits. It is therefore encouraging that there is the following evidence that the chemical division is growing stronger: it contributed 25 percent of the corporation's profit up from 10 percent the previous year.

On the basis of the facts stated which of the following is the best critique of the evidence presented above?

(A) The increase in the chemical division's contribution to corporation profits could have resulted largely from the introduction of a single, important new product.
(B) In multi-divisional corporations that have chemical divisions, over half of the corporation's profits usually come from chemicals
(C) The percentage of the corporation's profits attributable to the chemical division could have increased even if that division's performance had not improved.
(D) The information cited does not make it possible to determine whether the 25 percent share of profits cited was itself an improvement over the year before.
(E) The information cited does not make it possible to compare the performance of the chemical and pharmaceutical divisions in terms of the percent of total profits attributed to each.

OA:C

Well i wont strat digging reasons for C...I also feel C should not be OA in presence of other answers.

Moreover i am thinking about that tip from powerscore CR bible,if there is % if possible go for percentage in answer choice and if there is numbers in question and % in answers choice are usually wrong.

D,E,A an be all reasons
For A,gmat question most of the time says it is out of scope or not relevant(CR may be <>real world happening)
Now
I think this will be reason for E,
The sentence concludes with out proper evidence i guess.
The conclusion is B is growing stronger may be than before,now many people may think it means it is stronger than A but thats not logic.
If it were OA would have been E

suppose B=from 20 TO 35,
B from 70 to 69=
B has progressed and A has dipped.
so B is growing.
A and B can be compared.(in terms of profit....which indicates B has improved.....it is not that B has improved than A)

D.
Lets suppose 1 year before profit 2000
A=1400 B=200 (10%)
Current year profit 800(all because A has dipped a lot ,suppose from 70% to 10%...it was earning 1400 now it earns 600)
A=600 B=200(35%)
Ok A has dipped,but does it proves that B has been stronger.

Ok B has not improved.D seems to be inticing but i think now they will say
here we are taking about portion of profit of each department in totat profit pie of given year.(share in pie) as profit is base for comparision
Year before
It was 70% from dept A and 10% from B
Now in total profit pie share
As dept B itself is 35% ,dept A must be less than 65
so portion of dept B in profit pie has increased....it doesnt mean that B has increased or done better.
It says improves.

but i disagree with the wording of C
So eliminating all A seems to be good among wrost
But i know it wont change.

Thanks for ur Explain...
Can u plz help me understand the below mentioned line
I did not understand it much

"rom powerscore CR bible,if there is % if possible go for number % in question and % in answers are usually wrong. "

Option C is not clear in its wording itself.

I hope such questions don't come in GMAT

sanyalpritish wrote:Thanks for ur Explain...
Can u plz help me understand the below mentioned line
I did not understand it much

"rom powerscore CR bible,if there is % if possible go for number % in question and % in answers are usually wrong. "

sorry i have rephrased my lines.
The actual lines are
If the stimulus contains percent or proportion information only,avoid answers that contain hard numbers.

If the stimulus contains only numerical information only,avoid answers that contain % or proportion.

Thanks
I hope it is clear.