With a record number of new companies starting up

[Harish Dorai]

Please let me know why (C) is correct and (A) is not.

[dbernst]

Harish, a well-reasoned diagram should lead you right to the proper assumption:

Last Year:
1. Established companies = MANY new jobs
2. Many new companies
Result: record number of new jobs

This Year:
1. Established companies = FEWER new jobs
Conclusion: UNLESS record NUMBER of new companies, no new record for new jobs

Assumption: The NUMBER of new companies determines the number of new jobs. In other words, we are assuming that new companies will not hire more individuals PER COMPANY.

Answer choice A is irrelevant to the argument; it makes a comparison between new companies and established companies, rather than between the number of new companies and the number of jobs per new company.

I hope that makes sense!
-dan

[Lakshminarayan]

Hii Ron

I cannot understand why the answer is C unless I pick some numbers. I know picking numbers on CR isn't a good approach.

can you help me how to reason this question without picking numbers ?

thanks

[RonPurewal]

well, the problem has lots of words; that's probably the issue.

analogy:
Last year, the pizza places in Louisville served an all-time high total # of pizzas.
This year, the existing pizza places aren't expected to make as many pizzas as they did last year. So, for the city's pizza places to break that record for total pizzas, a record-high number of new pizza places must start up.

you shouldn't need to "plug in numbers" to see what the issue is here:
• the existing places aren't going to make as many pizzas.
• so, there is a shortfall of a certain NUMBER of pizzas.
• common sense says we can make up that shortfall in one of two ways: 1/ we can start up a whole bunch of new places, or 2/ we can start up fewer new places but those places can turn out HUGE numbers of pizzas.

argument says #1, but there's no good reason why it can't be #2 (= correct answer).

[Lakshminarayan]

Excellent explanation Ron.

Explained in a way that even a 4th grade student can answer GMAT CR questions.

Thanks a ton.

NO RON'S EXPLANATIONS NO 700 ON THE GMAT. :)

[RonPurewal]

well, my brain doesn't really tolerate complexity, so there's not much difference between "explain this to a 10-year-old" and "explain this to ron".

[AkshobhG526]

Hi,

For this this I was stuck between B & C.

I couldn't split a hair between the two, hence went for B.

I negated B and I thought it worked.

If the start-ups last year, don't create more jobs, then the assumption is valid right?

Best,
Akshobh

[RonPurewal]

.

[RonPurewal]

consider this statement from the passage:

This year, previously established companies will not be adding as many new jobs overall as such companies added last year.

this is not a lie.

choice B is about 'companies established last year'.
thus, choice B is merely a subset of the orange statistic.

the orange statistic is a FACT.
choice B is just about one component of the orange statistic. but, since we already know THE OVERALL OUTCOME of the orange statistic, we don't care about its components.
thus B is irrelevant.