Professor: The number of new university students who enter as chemistry majors has not changed in the last ten years,...

Meghan on September 18, 2019

Eliminating answer choices

I understand why E is the correct answer giving a reason as to why there has been a decline in students who graduate with a chemistry degree, however why would E be correct and C be wrong? Isn't C saying that students are unsure of the major they pick when entering college in that students could originally be chemistry majors but unsure of their choice which led them to change majors? Am I looking too far into the answer and assuming without having evidence for it?

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Irina on September 19, 2019

@megmcdermott,

(C) is an attractive answer choice but it fails to explain the change over the years. It might be true that students are unsure of their majors but is there a reason they are even more unsure now than 10 years ago? How does this fact fit with the facts in the stimulus that the number of students entering as chemistry majors remained the same but the number of graduates with a chemistry degree has gone down in the same time period? The correct answer choice must demonstrate that some change related to chemistry or the way students choose their majors v. getting degrees have occurred over the past decade to explain this growing discrepancy.

Let me know if this makes sense and if you have any further questions.

Anthony on July 13, 2021

This helped me - Thank you!