Percentage VS Number

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

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