fused wrote:Hey guys,
I've had problems with these kind of questions for quite a while now.
Q. At Consolidated Foundries, for a resolution to become policy, a quorum of at least half the 20 directors must pass the resolution by at least a two-thirds majority. At a meeting of the board of directors, did resolution X pass or fail?
(1) Ten directors voted for the resolution.
(2) Seven directors voted against the resolution.
Could you please help me out with the solving strategy?
The correct answer is B.
Thanks!
There are two types of DS questions: value and yes/no. Of the roughly 15 DS questions you'll likely see on test day, about 2/3 will be value and 1/3 will be yes/no.
Yes/no questions are the ones that are often conceptually more difficult. Here's what you need to remember:
for a statement to be sufficient on a yes/no question, it must give you a DEFINITE answer. If you can answer "definitely yes" OR "definitely no", the statement is sufficient; if you can only answer "maybe" or "sometimes" or "I'm not sure", the statement is insufficient.
Let's look at this specific question:
"At a meeting of the board of directors,
did resolution X pass or fail?"
"Did" in the question means the possible answers are "yes it did" or "no it didn't". If we can get a definite answer, we have sufficiency.
Step 1 of the Kaplan Method for DS: focus on the question stem.
To pass, we must have at least half of the 20 directors present and at least 2/3 of those present must vote yes.
So, what do we need? Information about the attendees and/or the way the voted.
Step 2 of the Kaplan Method for DS: consider each statement by itself, in conjuction with the question stem.
(1) 10 directors voted for the resolution.
First thing we note: no info about the number who attended.
We know that up to 20 could attend. We do have our quorum (10/20), so let's see if we have our 2/3s majority.
If exactly 10 attend, we have 10/10... that's a pass.
If all 20 attend, we only have 10/20... that's a fail.
So, the answer to the question is "we're not sure if it passed"... insufficient.
(2) 7 directors voted against the resolution.
First thing we note: no info about the number who attended.
We know that up to 20 could attend. We do not yet have our quorum (10/20), so it's certainly possible that the resolution does not pass.
Let's look at the extreme situations:
Only 7 showed up... no quorum, resolution doen't pass.
All 20 showed up... quorum; 13/20 vote yes. Is 13/20 at least 2/3? No! Therefore, even if all 20 showed up, the resolution still doesn't pass.
Accordingly, statement (2) tells us that the resolution definitely DID NOT pass: sufficient.
Step 3 of the Kaplan Method for DS: if necessary, combine the statements.
Here, statement (2) alone was sufficient... no need to combine.
(2) is sufficient, (1) isn't: choose (B).
