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After performing poorly on multiple

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After performing poorly on multiple

by LalaB » Tue Mar 27, 2012 7:28 am
After performing poorly on multiple tests and receiving a failing grade in a particular course, a student appealed the grade to a university's Office of Academic Affairs. The student claimed that the tests did not cover subject matter highlighted in the class lectures.

Which of the following would be the most useful in determining the validity of the student's claim?

-Compare the student's test scores with those of other students in the class.
-Compare the material covered in the professor's lecture notes to the material covered on the test.
-Compare the student's individual answers to those of a student who received high grades on the tests.
-Determine whether it is university policy to only test subject material highlighted in course lectures.
-Compare the student's class notes with the material covered on the test.

source -Kaplan CAT

[spoiler]Ä° need more explanation on the answer choices B and D[/spoiler]
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by killer1387 » Tue Mar 27, 2012 8:15 am
LalaB wrote:After performing poorly on multiple tests and receiving a failing grade in a particular course, a student appealed the grade to a university's Office of Academic Affairs. The student claimed that the tests did not cover subject matter highlighted in the class lectures.

Which of the following would be the most useful in determining the validity of the student's claim?

-Compare the student's test scores with those of other students in the class.
-Compare the material covered in the professor's lecture notes to the material covered on the test.
-Compare the student's individual answers to those of a student who received high grades on the tests.
-Determine whether it is university policy to only test subject material highlighted in course lectures.
-Compare the student's class notes with the material covered on the test.

source -Kaplan CAT

[spoiler]Ä° need more explanation on the answer choices B and D[/spoiler]
D should be correct.
students claim: the tests did not cover subject matter highlighted in the class lectures.

B) Compare the material covered in the professor's lecture notes to the material covered on the test.

whatever you answer this question you cant check the validity of the claim.
Basically you are not concerned with the material in the notes, its the subset of notes - the highlighted part.

D) better addresses the issue at hand.

HTH
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by scholardream » Tue Mar 27, 2012 8:58 am
Plz comment on my approach underneath:
Premises: student appealed to OAA after performing poorly on tests
Conclusion: tests DID NOT COVER subject matter HIGHLIGHTED in the CLASS LECTURES
Question: determine the validity of student's claim -> I expect to see information that support or attach the coverage of the tests
(A) Comparison of other students' scores doesn't relate to the question
(B) Comparison of material covered in professor's lecture notes to that on the test. This answer tries to attach the professor's lecture notes rather than the test. If it's true, it's professor's bad to talk about non-testing material all time.
(C) Comparison of other students' scores doesn't relate to the question
(D) University policy is the key impact on test material. If it's true, the student's claim is valid.
(E) Comparison of other students' scores doesn't relate to the question.
Therefore, I think (D) should be the correct answer.
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by LalaB » Fri Mar 30, 2012 7:32 am
the OA is B

here is the OE -

Identify the Question Type:

This is an Evaluation question, where we are asked to identify information that is relevant to determining the validity of a claim. We want to find a way to determine whether or not the student's assertion about the situation is true.

Untangle the Stimulus:

The student is claiming that his poor performance was based on the tests not covering the subject matter from class. The correct answer will be useful in evaluating whether the student is actually accurate in this claim.

Predict the Answer:

The most useful item of information in evaluating this claim would be whether the course material and tests contain the same concepts.

Evaluate the Choices:

The correct Answer Choice is (B). It matches our prediction perfectly.

Choices (A) and (C) are incorrect because other students' scores do not have any relevance to the student's claim.

Choice (D) is misleading because the university's policy has nothing to do with whether the materials tested were actually the ones that were highlighted in class; this professor may have been breaking any university policy in place.

Choice (E) is wrong because this comparison would not prove whether the lectures matched the test materials, since we have no proof that the student's notes matched the lecture material.
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by vikram4689 » Sat Apr 07, 2012 8:17 pm
It should be B. While reading options i felt a slight hitch towards D but using following strategy it took me less than 5 secs to conclude that D is not answer. For evaluate ques, always provide opposite answers to options and then evaluate response with the argument. OUR JOB is to evaluate the ARG/CONCLUSION. We want to check if student is saying truth or not.

Provide opposite answer YES and NO to option B.
YES material covered in the professor's lecture notes was SAME as the material covered on the test.
NO material covered in the professor's lecture notes was NOT SAME as the material covered on the test.

These 2 response will help us evaluate the argument.

Option D would have been correct IF ques had been to evaluate "IF any FALSE PRACTICE happened in taking tests" OR "Whether there was mistake in setting the question paper"

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by klmehta03 » Wed Apr 11, 2012 8:15 am
D is tempting but IMO is B
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by [email protected] » Fri Apr 13, 2012 10:18 pm
After performing poorly on multiple tests and receiving a failing grade in a particular course, a student appealed the grade to a university's Office of Academic Affairs. The student claimed that the tests did not cover subject matter highlighted in the class lectures.

Which of the following would be the most useful in determining the validity of the student's claim?

A] Compare the student's test scores with those of other students in the class.

B] Compare the material covered in the professor's lecture notes to the material covered on the test.

C] Compare the student's individual answers to those of a student who received high grades on the tests.

D] Determine whether it is university policy to only test subject material highlighted in course lectures.

E] Compare the student's class notes with the material covered on the test.


Well the student's claim is dependent on the premise that the tests that he appeared for were having questions that were not reflected in the notes that his class' notes gave him...
very interesting question and also all the options seem interesting...

In an evaluation question, the most important thing is that the answer choice should do both strengthen and weaken at the same time.

Option A: If I compare that particular student's scores with the other students sitting in the same class, then I am still not sure about the notes given by the professor in the class attended by that student itself... It might be possible that the other students went for 2 classes or had more than 1 notes to study for...
Hence does not affect the validity of the argument.

Option C: Simply does not make sense. Does not evaluate the student' claim at all...

Option D: The option where most of us stumbled.

Keep the premise closer to you, when considering the options. The premise is difference in the notes of the two (student' professor and the tests.)

Determine whether it is university policy to only test subject material highlighted in course lectures.

Assume the answer is Yes with 100% certainty, then it does affect the argument and weaken the student' claim. But there is one problem to this option, you still do not know whether the questions asked in the test were from outside or no as you do not know as to what is outside and what is inside the scope from the student' perspective. It must be possible, that in a particular year, the tests conducted might not be having any outside question, but the student thinks that the questions were from outside and not from the class notes. So the basic question is that how would you discriminate between outside questions and inside questions.

And when you say no to the above argument, still you need to figure out how many questions were out of syllabus and how many were not.

SO even if the option D weakens the argument but it does not strengthen the student' argument.
Hence option D is incorrect...


Option E: student' notes v/s test questions

The stimulus very particularly says that the class notes did not match. It must be possible that the student must not have taken the notes or must have attended the classes.

Option B sticks to the premises and strengthens and weakens the argument.

I feel that is the right thing to do...

Just like DS, even in CR keep negating the options. DO not mark the right answer, until 100% sure... and cannot negate further the options...

Hope this post really helps...
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by GMAT Kolaveri » Sat Apr 14, 2012 12:56 am
OA: B
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by spartacus1412 » Mon Jul 02, 2012 11:05 pm
here in choice B .
Cannot we consider the case when the lecturer did not give the complete notes to the class.
In this case, lecture's notes have the topic which was not taught in the class??

Please clarify
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by Bill@VeritasPrep » Tue Jul 03, 2012 9:48 am
spartacus1412 wrote:here in choice B .
Cannot we consider the case when the lecturer did not give the complete notes to the class.
In this case, lecture's notes have the topic which was not taught in the class??

Please clarify
We don't even know if the professor handed out notes; the student's claim is only about what was "highlighted in the class lectures." However, the lecture notes would be the only written record available to compare to the test materials.
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by mv12 » Fri Jul 06, 2012 8:14 pm
B it is..D is wrong because we don't have to do anything with University policy.
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