Extracurricular activities

Question

High School Principal: There is little doubt that extra-curricular activities such as sports teams waste the time students could better spend on academics. Close to half the students in this school barely passed the math and science portions of the graduation exam. Clearly, our attention needs to be refocused. In order to improve our school’s performance on the graduation exam, I propose that we discontinue all school sports beginning next year.

EACH of the following, if true, casts doubt on the principal’s conclusion that discontinuing school sports will improve academics EXCEPT

A) A surplus in last year’s school budget was spent on transportation for the football team rather than on buying a new available edition of the school’s science textbook.
B) Most members of school sports teams were in the half of students that easily passed the graduation exam.
C) The principal does not have a specific plan for re-focusing the school’s resources on academics.
D) The school’s math and science textbooks have been outdated for two years.
E)Even though the principal claims that half the school’s students 'barely passed' the graduation exam, they did meet the state’s minimum requirements for graduation.

OA is A

Are such 'except' type of questions frequent on the GMAT?

komal · Answer

hello rahul

In response to ur query let me quote something that is mentioned in POWERSCORE CRITICAL REASONING BIBLE. On page 63 it states as follows :

Some GMAT critical reasoning sections feature "except" questions very HEAVILY, especially as you encounter higher-difficulty problems.

Hope this answers ur question, if only partially. : )

rahul.s · Answer

komal wrote:hello rahul

In response to ur query let me quote something that is mentioned in POWERSCORE CRITICAL REASONING BIBLE. On page 63 it states as follows :

Some GMAT critical reasoning sections feature "except" questions very HEAVILY, especially as you encounter higher-difficulty problems.

Hope this answers ur question, if only partially. : )

i'll keep that in mind. these q's are really tricky, so i'll need to focus on them a little more. thank you

sumanr84 · Answer

I think answer is quite obvious to figure out - A. All other options cast doubt on principal's conclusion.

A general problem that everyone faces in these types of question stem ( EXCEPT kind of ) is that after reading the answer we go back to the Q and see if it meets the EXCEPT criteria mentioned in the Q. I had this problem before reading PowerScore book.

Now, I generally reformulate Q in this way,

EACH of the following, if true, casts doubt on the principal's conclusion that discontinuing school sports will improve academics EXCEPT

TO,

Which of the following casts doubts on the principal's conclusion. Then evaluate all the 5 options on that basis. 5 figures-5 options..use them as flags

and there you go..

mgmt_gmat · Answer

Hi sumanr84, Can you please explain... why the answer choide D is not the corre t answer. Because, it mentions that textbook has ben outdated for 2 years. Hence it stengthen principal's argument....

rahul.s · Answer

mgmt_gmat wrote:Hi sumanr84,

Can you please explain... why the answer choide D is not the corre t answer. Because, it mentions that textbook has ben outdated for 2 years. Hence it stengthen principal's argument....

the principal states that the shift of focus from academics to extracurricular activities such as sports is the reason for the low grades. answer choice D states that the textbook has been outdated since 2 years. this is in fact, weakens the principals conclusion as it says that extracurricular activities weren't the reason for the low grades. like i said, these type of q's are tricky

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