- #Official gmat practice test answer explanations how to#
- #Official gmat practice test answer explanations free#
However, most people carelessly calculate the charge as if it were per minute.
#Official gmat practice test answer explanations how to#
Here is the incredibly well-made “con” in this question:Ī majority of high performing students do not properly interpret how to determine the cost-the instructions say $0.75 for the first 3 minutes NOT $0.75 per minute for the first three minutes. It also shows how it is often easier to manipulate the question stems to match the statements in data sufficiency questions than to change the statements to match the questions (what you naturally want to do). This problem highlights how important it is to read carefully and to look for potential interpretation errors in GMAT math questions. As in business, success on the GMAT requires hypervigilance-one lazy moment and you get a very doable question wrong! If both statements together still result in an infinite number of possibilities for the value of x, why do a majority of high-performing students still pick (C), thinking x must be 2? Because they don’t understand the con and they let their guard down! Just because you find one “con” in a question (in this example, the positive/negative issue), does not mean there aren’t others still present!Īll hard questions on this exam work as follows: good test takers find the first “con” in the problem and are satisfied to stop at that point the best test takers remain highly critical even after that infusion of dopamine from identifying the first “con” and keep looking for traps, eventually proving the correct answer. Since the value for x cannot be determined, the correct answer is (E). This still leaves an infinite number of possibilities for the two values: 2 and 3, 4 and 6, 6 and 9, 8 and 12, etc. However, when taken together, all that statements (1) and (2) tell you is that the ratio of x:t must be 2:3 and x and t must be positive. The positive/negative issues present in this question are a shiny penny-so many people pick (C) because they only focus on the positive/negative ambiguity in statement (1), and statement (2) guarantees they are positive. People feel good about themselves for identifying this fact and quickly pick (C), since adding statement (2) seems to guarantee that x and t are positive 2 and positive 3, respectively.Īnytime the test writers can create a scenario in which you have a dopamine response and feel good about finding a trap, you are likely to stop being critical. You look at statement (1), glance at statement (2), and immediately realize that x and t could be positive or negative in statement (1) alone, making it insufficient.
In statement (1), you are given a piece of information that the test writers purposefully want you to determine is insufficient. This frequently missed question is a wonderful example of what happens when you don’t remain critical. In all of my classes and tutoring sessions, I emphasize how important it is to “spot the con” and to critically analyze your decision-making process when working through GMAT problems. Try the following example from the official practice tests: Data Sufficiency GMAT Sample Question #1 Essentially, GMAT data sufficiency questions assess who is good at spotting the con and who is hypervigilant, two extremely important skills in business. The difficulty in data sufficiency questions often comes more from the particular construct and the inherent logic than from the math itself. GMAT data sufficiency questions are surprisingly sophisticated, and most students do not truly understand the game or leverage all the hints present in these complex problems.
In the explanations below, I will use some of the core tenets of the Menlo Coaching GMAT curriculum to breakdown two official GMAT data sufficiency questions and provide important principles for correctly attacking this question type in the future. But even if you come up with the correct answer to an official problem, you still might not understand the underlying principles used to create that particular question, leaving yourself open to traps and pitfalls set by the test writers. We’ve already covered why studying with official practice questions is the best way to prepare for the GMAT.
#Official gmat practice test answer explanations free#
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