Half the time Statements A and B are both insufficient?

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and1ms238: Junior | Next Rank: 30 Posts; Posts: 22; Joined: Wed Dec 30, 2009 1:59 pm; Thanked: 3 times

by and1ms238 » Sat Feb 20, 2010 12:54 pm

Going through the BTG flash cards, I came across this:

INSUFFICIENT: Half the time statements (A) and (B) are both INSUFFICIENT.

Is this true?

So does that mean that 50% of the DS Answers will be Either (C) together or (E) neither?

And that half will be either (A), (B), or (D)?

Is this proven to be true? Also, does this apply to all levels of DS Questions?

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Source: Beat The GMAT — Data Sufficiency | Sat Feb 20, 2010 12:54 pm

shashank.ism: Legendary Member; Posts: 1022; Joined: Mon Jul 20, 2009 11:49 pmFollowed by: 2 members; Location: Gandhinagar; Thanked: 41 times

by shashank.ism » Sat Feb 20, 2010 1:06 pm

and1ms238 wrote:Going through the BTG flash cards, I came across this:

INSUFFICIENT: Half the time statements (A) and (B) are both INSUFFICIENT.

Is this true?

So does that mean that 50% of the DS Answers will be Either (C) together or (E) neither?

And that half will be either (A), (B), or (D)?

Is this proven to be true? Also, does this apply to all levels of DS Questions?

yeah as far as I have come across the questions on this forum and other books I have found a majority of question having ans C i.e. combine d sufficient

after that comes the no. of E i.e. both insufficient

The least no. is of D i.e. both individually sufficient

this is just an observation but u can't go this way in real GMAT paper otherwise no use to give the exams...

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Ian Stewart: GMAT Instructor; Posts: 2623; Joined: Mon Jun 02, 2008 3:17 amFollowed by: 355 members; Location: Montreal; Thanked: 1090 times; GMAT Score:780

by Ian Stewart » Sat Feb 20, 2010 3:16 pm

and1ms238 wrote:Going through the BTG flash cards, I came across this:

INSUFFICIENT: Half the time statements (A) and (B) are both INSUFFICIENT.

Is this true?

So does that mean that 50% of the DS Answers will be Either (C) together or (E) neither?

And that half will be either (A), (B), or (D)?

Is this proven to be true? Also, does this apply to all levels of DS Questions?

No, that's not true at all. I did an analysis of every published official Data Sufficiency question I could find, and answer choice D was the most common of the five (at just over 25%), though the frequency was within the margin of error, so that was almost surely just chance - it was not what a researcher would call a 'statistically significant' finding. You should expect each of the five answers to be correct equally often on official GMAT DS questions.

For online GMAT math tutoring, or to buy my higher-level Quant books and problem sets, contact me at ianstewartgmat at gmail.com

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shashank.ism: Legendary Member; Posts: 1022; Joined: Mon Jul 20, 2009 11:49 pmFollowed by: 2 members; Location: Gandhinagar; Thanked: 41 times

by shashank.ism » Sat Feb 20, 2010 8:50 pm

Ian Stewart wrote: No, that's not true at all. I did an analysis of every published official Data Sufficiency question I could find, and answer choice D was the most common of the five (at just over 25%), though the frequency was within the margin of error, so that was almost surely just chance - it was not what a researcher would call a 'statistically significant' finding. You should expect each of the five answers to be correct equally often on official GMAT DS questions.

Well Ian that was a very nice knowledge...Actually i described about whatever questions I found over here in the forum on BTG. It might be possible that people are posting those question in greater number as those questions are bit confusing..
Well In any case u can never go on with hit and trial ...
so better try to solve all the problems...

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jamesacorrea: Junior | Next Rank: 30 Posts; Posts: 10; Joined: Mon Dec 13, 2010 8:35 am; GMAT Score:710

by jamesacorrea » Fri Sep 21, 2012 1:38 am

Ya, I have to admit I found that assertion to be surprising. I wouldn't expect the GMAT to provide a guessing handicap for no reason. So ... I will stick with entirely random guesses on DS (if I am utterly clueless of course) instead of blindly picking C or E.

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