Ambigious Word Questions Involving Ratios (Or Do I Not Know The Conventions?)

Question

I am just curious if I was at fault here for the way I answered these questions, or if the book was at fault for not being clear enough. Perhaps I'm missing something regarding the conventions of answering these types of questions...

Edit: These aren't test questions or anything like that (I've been out of school for a long time). I'm brushing up on some practice questions for a military entrance exam I have coming up.

Question 1

The answer to the first question is a. I answered c. Back when I was in school I learned to always simplify when available. Was I wrong to simplify the ratio?

Question 2

For question 2 I answered c, while the right answer is supposed to be b. I figured that in virtue of it being a ratio doubling the number of women would automatically increase the number of men proportionally. Was that a wrong assumption on my part, or do you believe it was erroneous to not take the question literally?

Answer 1

question 1

Both (a) and (c) are correct.

question 2

if the ratio of men to women is 2:1, then there are 2k men and k women for some number k. If the number of women is doubled, then there will be 2k men and 2k women, changing the ratio to 1:1.