Systems magazine

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Systems magazine

by ssgmatter » Wed May 05, 2010 3:22 am
Please explain this one with reasons.....


Finding of a survey of Systems magazine subscribers: Thirty percent of all merchandise
orders placed by subscribers in response to advertisements in the magazine last year were
placed by subscribers under age thirty-five.
Finding of a survey of advertisers in Systems magazine: Most of the merchandise orders
placed in response to advertisements in Systems last year were placed by people under
age thirty-five.
For both of the findings to be accurate, which of the following must be true?
A. More subscribers to Systems who have never ordered merchandise in response to
advertisements in the magazine are age thirty-five or over than are under age
thirty-five.
B. Among subscribers to Systems, the proportion who are under age thirty-five was
considerably lower last year than it is now.
C. Most merchandise orders placed in response to advertisements in Systems last
year were placed by Systems subscribers over age thirty-five.
D. Last year, the average dollar amount of merchandise orders placed was less for
subscribers under age thirty-five than for those age thirty-five or over.
E. Last year many people who placed orders for merchandise in response to
advertisements in Systems were not subscribers to the magazine
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Source: — Critical Reasoning |

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by kevincanspain » Wed May 05, 2010 3:36 am
Have you noticed that the two surveys are of two different groups of people? The first is about orders placed by subscribers, whereas the second is about orders in general!

If I told you that a small percentage of my friends want to have children in the next 5 years, but most of my female friends want to do so, what can you infer about my friends?
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by bupbebeo » Wed May 05, 2010 4:01 am
ssgmatter wrote:Please explain this one with reasons.....


Finding of a survey of Systems magazine subscribers: Thirty percent of all merchandise
orders placed by subscribers in response to advertisements in the magazine last year were
placed by subscribers under age thirty-five.
Finding of a survey of advertisers in Systems magazine: Most of the merchandise orders
placed in response to advertisements in Systems last year were placed by people under
age thirty-five.
For both of the findings to be accurate, which of the following must be true?
A. More subscribers to Systems who have never ordered merchandise in response to
advertisements in the magazine are age thirty-five or over than are under age
thirty-five.
B. Among subscribers to Systems, the proportion who are under age thirty-five was
considerably lower last year than it is now.
C. Most merchandise orders placed in response to advertisements in Systems last
year were placed by Systems subscribers over age thirty-five.
D. Last year, the average dollar amount of merchandise orders placed was less for
subscribers under age thirty-five than for those age thirty-five or over.
E. Last year many people who placed orders for merchandise in response to
advertisements in Systems were not subscribers to the magazine
IMO: C

First of all, this is a Must be true question. In must be true question, the correct answer will paraphrase the stimulus or combine elements in the stimulus to make a conclusion or infer an argument.

A: wrong: because the scope of the stimulus is about people who subscribe not those who do not subscribe.
B: wrong: the stimulus just concern about last year. So, information about this year is not related
C. right because according to the stimulus, just 1/3 of all merchandise orders .... under 35. therefore 2/3 of orders are 35 or over. we can say most. If someone argue that those who are 35 might subscribe most. Then, this answer is also wrong.
D. average dollar amount of merchandise is out of scope
E. the argument just concern about subscribers. therefore those who are not subscribers are not concerned. so this answer choice is wrong.

In conclusion, C is the best answer because we can infer information from the first premise. However, if someone argue that of 2/3 of subscribes who are 35 or over 35. 35 year old people might subscribe most. this answer choice will be also wrong.

Hope that helps

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by ssgmatter » Wed May 05, 2010 6:01 am
kevincanspain wrote:Have you noticed that the two surveys are of two different groups of people? The first is about orders placed by subscribers, whereas the second is about orders in general!

If I told you that a small percentage of my friends want to have children in the next 5 years, but most of my female friends want to do so, what can you infer about my friends?
This means that most of your friends want to have children....Am I right?....Please correct me....

Many thanks!
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by kevincanspain » Wed May 05, 2010 6:33 am
kevincanspain wrote:Have you noticed that the two surveys are of two different groups of people? The first is about orders placed by subscribers, whereas the second is about orders in general!

If I told you that a small percentage of my friends want to have children in the next 5 years, but most of my female friends want to do so, what can you infer about my friends?
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by paddle_sweep » Wed May 05, 2010 9:04 am
IMO it's E. Pls post OA.

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by ssgmatter » Wed May 05, 2010 9:06 am
OA is E[/spoiler]
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by gtvisa2002 » Thu May 13, 2010 8:29 am
kevincanspain wrote:Have you noticed that the two surveys are of two different groups of people? The first is about orders placed by subscribers, whereas the second is about orders in general!

If I told you that a small percentage of my friends want to have children in the next 5 years, but most of my female friends want to do so, what can you infer about my friends?
Then I would infer that the percentage of your friends who are female is comparitively less than the percentage of friends who are male.

Say 65 male friends and 35 female (35% of total)....... and if 30 of these say they want to have children then 30% of your friends say they do. So 30 out of 100 friends is a small number at the same time 30 out of 35 female friends say yes, that means most of this group.

so you have many male friends.Here
male friends are analogous to people who ar e not subscribers
female friends are analagous to subscribers

Conclusion is there were more number of orders from people who are not subscribers than who are subscribers.
I am leaving "under 35" because both of these categories are under 35.


Did I get your point correctly.
Thank you.

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by ansumania » Thu May 13, 2010 9:12 am
kevincanspain wrote:Have you noticed that the two surveys are of two different groups of people? The first is about orders placed by subscribers, whereas the second is about orders in general!

If I told you that a small percentage of my friends want to have children in the next 5 years, but most of my female friends want to do so, what can you infer about my friends?
can't we have two conclusion for the stimulus.

1- most of the female are not my frnds.

2-female frnds constitute a small proportion of my frnds.

now if we go by conclusion 1 , we will get the answer to our question .

pl. correct me if I went wrong.

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by kevincanspain » Sat May 15, 2010 2:34 pm
ansumania wrote:
kevincanspain wrote:Have you noticed that the two surveys are of two different groups of people? The first is about orders placed by subscribers, whereas the second is about orders in general!

If I told you that a small percentage of my friends want to have children in the next 5 years, but most of my female friends want to do so, what can you infer about my friends?
can't we have two conclusion for the stimulus.

1- most of the female are not my frnds.

2-female frnds constitute a small proportion of my frnds.

now if we go by conclusion 1 , we will get the answer to our question .

pl. correct me if I went wrong.
We can conclude no 2. As for no. 1, we are talking about my friends in general and my female friends in particular, so we cannot conclude no. 1. If the overall statistics on purchase orders differ markedly from the ones gathered about purchase orders placed only by subscribers, then a significant proportion of the orders were placed by non-subscribers (E)
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