Many consulting firms have started to screen prospective candidates

IMO D

The conclusion is - 10% of Candidates will still be misfits even if the new selection practice is used. Since there are chances that 50% of unsuitable candidates will succeed in escaping this filter.
This implies that the efficacy of this practice is 50 % only.
so if 12 candidates apply and 6 are unsuitable then 3 will escape this filter.
and so out of 9 candidates 3 are still unsuitable having chances of getting selected.

Now the selection procedure will also eliminate 10% meaning now they have 8 candidates to select from where previously they had 12.

So the number of candidates available has gone down, thus the percentage of candidates hired to the percentage of candidates applied will also go down.

correctly inferred in option D.

Many consulting firms have started to screen prospective candidates with the help of case interviews, on top of the regular selection process. If this practice is widely adopted, it will help the firms in eliminating up to 10% of all the candidates who would otherwise have been misfits for the case-based work. Yet, the new process may still not catch half of the unsuitable candidates. Therefore, 10% of all the candidates will still be misfits.

Which one of the following inferences about the consequences of instituting the new tests is best supported by the passage above?

(A) The percentage of misfits in the consulting industry will go up.
(B) The number of applicants to consulting firms will decline over a period.
(C) Balance of demand of consulting firms and supply of fit candidates cannot be achieved.
(D) The number of new candidates hired as a percentage of candidates appearing for the selection process at consulting firms will go down.
(E) The candidates aspiring for consulting will start preparing for case interviews.

Now, let's see what the argument states,

Premise I : If case interviews practice is widely adopted, it will help the firms in eliminating up to 10% of all the candidates who would otherwise have been misfits for the case-based work.

Premise II : Yet, the new process may still not catch half of the unsuitable candidates.

Conclusion : Therefore, 10% of all the candidates will still be misfits.

Remember it's an inference question, so let's understand the details.
Supposing there were 100 candidates appearing for the interview process and say 20 got selected and remaining 80 therefore got rejected, what the new screening process does is that it removes upto 10% of those selected candidates,who would otherwise have been misfits for case works. So,that makes it 2 candidates out of total 20 selected candidates. Also, the screening weeds out 50% of the unsuitable candidates i.e, 40 candidates out of total 80 unsuitable candidates.

The argument further goes on to claim that despite the new process 10% of the selected candidates would still be misfits. The basis of this conclusion being that the new process doesn't screen out 100% of the unsuitable candidates but actually screens only 50% of unsuitable candidates, thereby leaving adequate scope for misfits still making through the complete selection process. To put it in terms of numbers, the process screens out total 42 candidates i.e, 2 out of selected lot and 40 out of unsuitable ones.
Now there are numerous issues with such a reasoning but because it's an Inference Question, let's just focus on information given in the premises as none of the answer choices address the assumptions made to reach the conclusion.
Only Answer Choice D is based on the facts mentioned in the argument. If with the new process 18 candidates are found to be suitable against 20 without the screening, we can safely say that the number of new candidates hired as a percentage of candidates appearing for the selection process at consulting firms have gone down.

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Hello,

I have a doubt in option D.

Let's suppose a company is planning to hire 20 people and 100 people applied for the position
Before Implementation of case interviews:
Out of 20 people hired, 10 were misfits
After Implementation of case interviews:
Out of 20 people hired, 9 were misfits
Case interviews are just helping the company screen out misfits and reducing the percentage of misfits hired out of total hired, but not deciding how many people the company will be hiring.

Percentage candidates hired remained same in both the cases.

Can someone please help me why D is still correct?

Hello
Can you please explain how D is the right answer?

Experts' Global Video Explanation:

What bothers me is that the passage is talking about candidates, while the alternative talks about candidates HIRED -> different samples. Therefore, it seems to have a missing link that adequate candidates won't be hired instead of misfits

I have a doubt. The text states that there are case studies in addition to the regular selection process. The correct answer assumes everyone that is not eliminated after the case interviews is hired, right? How can we know that from the text?