Corporate Officer: Last year was an unusually poor one for o

[JbhB682]

Source : GMAT prep

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.

[JbhB682]

I can see why C is right but I am struggling to eliminate E out right.

Option E says' we dont have the %'s to compare the chemical division vs the Pharma division vs other divisions.

Lets say we were given these %'s to compare. [just made up some %'s]


[img]https://ibb.co/txLt00q
https://ibb.co/3fbN7PX[/img]


Even if we were given's these % 's (select blue link above) -- In all of my three scenario's post change, we still don't know necessarily if the Pharma division actually "improved" or "stayed the same"

Is that how to eliminate E specifically (Even if we were given comparison %'s, we can't say for sure if the Pharma division improved / stayed the same /weakened

Hence, even if E was given -- we cant necessarily weaken nor strengthen the argument

Thank you !

[esledge]

I think you are on the right track about why (E) is wrong: It’s not “new” info. Your table can be created based on the argument; (E) didn’t provide that info.

(E) is an appealing trap because it is true (i.e. it agrees with the passage). But the question didn’t ask “what could be true?” It asked for “the best critique of the evidence.” To critique, seek something flawed in the argument’s logic, which mainly has to do with the author assuming that actual profits (in dollars, for instance) and percent of total profits are the same (or directly correlated).

(C) is correct because it suggests (correctly) that percents could increase even if actual $ amounts don’t.

(E) is wrong because, like the argument, it focuses solely on the percent info, which was already inconclusive for determining $ amounts.

This idea that “Percents aren’t the same as actual numbers” shows up in a number of CR questions, so I bet you’ll see it again!

[JbhB682]

(E) is an appealing trap because it is true (i.e. it agrees with the passage). But the question didn’t ask “what could be true?”

Thank you Emily for responding - I think what you are saying when you say the above statement is

Answer E would be right answer if the question was instead "What can we infer based on the information in the argument"

What we can infer would be the following -- %'s for any of the divisions have not been given for this year

Because this is something we can infer, this is what makes this an appealing trap answer

Thank you

[esledge]

You are welcome!