Corporate Officer: Last year was an unusually poor one for our chemical division, which has traditionally contributed

Corporate Officer: Last year was an unusually poor one for our chemical division, which has traditionally contributed about 60 percent of the corporation's profits. It is therefore encouraging that there is the following evidence that the pharmaceutical division is growing stronger: it contributed 45 percent of the corporation's profits, up from 20 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 pharmaceutical division's contribution to corporation profits could have resulted largely from the introduction of single, important new product.

(B) In multidivisional corporations that have pharmaceutical divisions, over half of the corporation's profits usually come from the pharmaceuticals.

(C) The percentage of the corporation's profits attributable to the pharmaceutical 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 20 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 of the percent of total profits attributable to each.


OA C

Source: GMAT Prep