I saw this one in the sets as well. No clue. Looks likes a typo to me.

ketkoag wrote:In 1997 there were 300 female employees at Company C. If the number of female
employees at Company C increased by 60 percent from 1997 to 1987, by what percent
did the number of female employees at Company C increase from 1987 to 1997?
(1) From 1977 to 1997 the number of female employees increased by 200 percent at
Company C.
(2) In 1977 there were 100 female employees at Company C.

I've boldfaced the typo. It should say "from 1977 to 1987". It's the only logical way, since an increase/decrease does not ever occur backwards in time! It really makes no sense the way it stands.


Now, to answer the question.
You know that 1997 there were 300 female employees. From 1977 to 1987, the number of female employees increased by 60%. This means that:

Let's make some convenient notations:
x = women in 1977
y = women in 1987
z = women in 1997

You know that z = 300 and that y = 160% * x = 1.6x. You're trying to find out a relationship between y and z.

1. tells you that z = 300% * x = 3x.
But you also know that y = 1.6x. This means that x = y/1.6. Couple that with the above to get that:
z = 3*(y/1.6) - as you can see, this is indeed a relationship between z and y, so 1 is sufficient.

2. tells you that x = 100. Use y = 1.6x to establish that y = 1.6*100 = 160. Since you have numeric values for both z (300) and y (160), it is possible to find out a percentage relationship between the two.

So D would be my choice.