According to a recent study on financial roles, one-third of high school seniors say that they have “significant financial responsibilities.” These responsibilities include, but are not limited to, contributing to food, shelter, or clothing for themselves or their families. At the same time, a second study demonstrates that a crisis in money management exists for high school students. According to this study, 80% of high school seniors have never taken a personal finance class even though the same percentage of seniors has opened bank accounts and one-third of these account holders has bounced a check.

Which of the following conclusions can be properly drawn from the statements above?
(a) High schools would be wise to incorporate personal finance classes into their core curricula.
(b) At least one-third of high school seniors work part-time jobs after school.
(c) The number of high school seniors with significant financial responsibilities is greater than the number of seniors who have bounced a check.
(d) Any high school seniors who contribute to food, shelter, or clothing for themselves or their families have significant financial responsibilities.
(e) The majority of high school students have no financial responsibilities to their families.

The passage only provides information on how many seniors SAY they have significant financial responsibilities. In GMAT fashion, this should not be enough information to draw a conclusion about the actual number of seniors who have significant financial responsibilities. Although the passage gives no reason to doubt the accuracy of the responses, neither does the passage affirm them or ask us to assume correctness.

I eliminated the correct choice (c) because it asks us to make a conclusion about the actual number of seniors with significant financial responsibilities.

I think the wording in this choice should be altered. I would love to know if I am missing something here.

You're smart to be careful about jumps from percents to actual values, but notice that here the following two claims are equivalent:

The number of HSS with significant financial responsibilities is greater than the number of HSS who have bounced a check.

The percentage of HSS with significant financial responsibilities is greater than the percentage of HSS who have bounced a check.

Since 1/3 of 80% (the number who have bounced checks) is less than 1/3 of 100% (the number with significant financial responsibilities), C is correct.

Thanks, but my objection doesn't have anything to do with percents vs. actual values.

My objection is that what one group SAYS about themselves is not an adequate basis for making a conclusion about the actual characteristics of that group.

You're right, but if we are picky about whether to believe the reports, none of the answer choices would be correct. So keeping in mind that every question has exactly one correct answer, our back-up plan is to assume that they want us to take the report as a given. You are correct though that if there had been an option that allowed a conclusion to be drawn without that inference it would be a better choice..

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Tim Sanders
Manhattan GMAT Instructor