Percentage VS Number

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Soumita: Senior | Next Rank: 100 Posts; Posts: 34; Joined: Fri Nov 16, 2012 1:58 pm; Followed by:1 members

Percentage VS Number

by Soumita » Wed Jan 23, 2013 7:45 pm

According to surveys by the National Institute on Drug Abuse, about 20 percent of
young adults used cocaine in 1979, doubling those reported in the 1977 survey.

(A) doubling those reported in the 1977 survey
(B) to double the number the 1977 survey reported
(C) twice those the 1977 survey reported
(D) twice as much as those reported in the 1977 survey
(E) twice the number reported in the 1977 survey

OA E.

I understood why E is correct choice than other choices but my query is can we use number in place of percentage? I think that number is not the same as percentage. The comparison is between the percentage of young adults in 1979 and 1977.

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Source: Beat The GMAT — Sentence Correction | Wed Jan 23, 2013 7:45 pm

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brianlange77: GMAT Instructor; Posts: 417; Joined: Mon Jan 07, 2013 8:49 pm; Location: Chapel Hill, NC; Thanked: 132 times; Followed by:93 members; GMAT Score:750

by brianlange77 » Wed Jan 23, 2013 8:01 pm

Interesting question -- do you read 'number' to mean twice the number of adults? or 'number' to mean that the percentage in 1977 was 10%? If they wanted to mean '10% --> 20%', I think they would have just said 'twice the percentage.'

I don't think my interpretation of the comparison is the same as yours.

Thoughts?

-Brian

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Soumita Ghosh: Master | Next Rank: 500 Posts; Posts: 111; Joined: Sat Apr 14, 2012 11:09 am; Thanked: 1 times; Followed by:7 members

by Soumita Ghosh » Thu Jan 24, 2013 1:37 pm

Hi Brian,

Thanks for your response.

I think in this sentence they used the'number' to mean that the percentage in 1977 was 10%. So how can number be used in place of percentage?

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brianlange77: GMAT Instructor; Posts: 417; Joined: Mon Jan 07, 2013 8:49 pm; Location: Chapel Hill, NC; Thanked: 132 times; Followed by:93 members; GMAT Score:750

by brianlange77 » Thu Jan 24, 2013 5:28 pm

Soumita Ghosh wrote:Hi Brian,

Thanks for your response.

I think in this sentence they used the'number' to mean that the percentage in 1977 was 10%. So how can number be used in place of percentage?

Soumita:

I'm going to give you a somewhat snippy, but honest response. "Because they do." If some of the answer choices contained the word 'number' and some contained the word 'percentage', then, perhaps, there's a bigger argument to be had here. But, the fact is, they don't. So, while you may not love the word choice -- your assignment is to pick the 'best' of the available options. In your dream world, you might always be able to construct a more ideal answer choice, but this is multiple-choice, not fill in the blank, so you'll have to save that for another time.

If you had a problem such as this -- https://www.beatthegmat.com/the-recent-s ... 15560.html -- then there's more of a choice to be made on the 'word choice' front, but that doesn't really seem to be part of the decision-making criteria here.

Thoughts?

-Brian