lsat-13-1-22

22.   At the end of the year, Wilson’s Department Store awards free merchandise to its top salespeople. When presented with the fact that the number of salespeople receiving these awards has declined markedly over the past fifteen years, the newly appointed president of the company responded, “In that case, since our award criterion at present is membership in the top third of our sales force, we can also say that the number of salespeople passed over for these awards has similarly declined.”

Which one of the following is an assumption that would allow the company president’s conclusion to be properly drawn?

(A) Policies at Wilson’s with regard to hiring salespeople have not become more lax over the past fifteen years.

(B) The number of salespeople at Wilson’s has increased over the past fifteen years.

(C) The criterion used by Wilson’s for selecting its award recipients has remained the same for the past fifteen years.

(D) The average total sales figures for Wilson’s salespeople have been declining for fifteen years.（C）

(E) Wilson’s calculates its salespeople’s sales figures in the same way as it did fifteen years ago.

搜索过以前的帖子，没有定论，有的说pass over是通过这个标准的意思，有的说是被淘汰的意思，请版主给个权威的解释吧！还有membership in the top third of our sales force是什么意思？是前三名吗？那又怎会下降呢？I'm totally confused

1。除非是出题的官方机构作出说明，否则那有权威可言。

2。关键理解president的话：因为我们现在的标准是奖励作为会员的前三名销售人员，所以没有得到奖励的销售人员的人数也相应减少。其实减少的原因在于现在必须是membership，原来不需要。至于前三名是如何定的，就不是本题该考虑的。

看了lawyer 的解答，我又有了一点新的想法：如果把top third理解成会员的前三分之一的话似乎较为合理，这个领导的意思是获奖人数的减少并非是他们提高标准所致，如果以前的“三分之一”如果比现在的“三分之一”多的话，那么以前的“三分之二”也会比现在的“三分之二”多。

谢谢lawyer，请继续赐教

forgive my insist, hehe, I just searched google, a result confirmed my guess, as follows:

Aetna In Top Third Of '100 Best Corporate Citizens' List

Business Ethics magazine has announced its fifth annual "100 Best Corporate Citizens" rankings. Having been ranked No. 83 in the 2003 rankings, Aetna again made the list in 2004, ranking No. 28, a rise of 55 spots. Business Ethics said, "The firm that climbed the most in a single year is Aetna." Aetna is the highest ranked health insurer on the list.

同意三楼的

是前1/3，

前三名是top three.