Hey Guys,

MSR is indeed the toughest question type on IR. Whether or not you can skip it is difficult to say. Some general rules:

1) IR, as a whole, is not particularly important. This is because the main thing schools care about remains the 2-800 score. Also, because IR is so new, it'll be a few years before schools really understand what it means (in terms of student performance at business school).

2) You can get 2-3 questions wrong on IR and still get a perfect score (of 8). So as long as you're confident you can rock every other question on IR, you could conceivably skip an MSR passage and suffer, at most, a 1 point loss.

3) All that being said, I always get nervous whenever a student says "I wouldn't be able to do that on test day." Instead of being totally defeatist about it, think about what's really going on. Look for shortcuts. Are you sure you can't do it?

4) FInally, this isn't an official GMAT question. It's from GMAT Pill, which I know nothing about. And I agree that I haven't read a real question quite this complicated. I don't understand what's going on either. That doesn't mean it's impossible, by the way. But to be safe, practice with the IR section that comes with the OG 13, and see if it feels equivalent.

-t

Hey Guys,

I wanted to add one other quick thing. My biggest problem with this question is it doesn't make clear whether the price listed is a nightly rate, or the rate for all four nights. It also doesn't make clear if the rates are per person. Finally, it's unclear whether the refund suggested here is per night, per group, or per person. So Katy's take on it is as good as anyone's. The only problem I see is that I'm not sure why the ticket would be relevant. The Spring Break Organizers don't lose any money on the ticket (they raise the price, then offer a discount), so I don't see how it would affect their bottom line...but I'm open to argument!

-t