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Check this one!!!

by gmatblood » Sat Nov 05, 2011 11:21 am
While political discourse and the media in the United States have focused on the rise of job outsourcing, few have mentioned the sharp fall of talent "insourcing," or the drop in enrollment of foreign-born graduate students since 2001, and its dire results. The decrease in such insourcing will hurt America's competitiveness in basic research and applied technology, with serious consequences for years to come. The de-internationalization of graduate programs across the country will also negatively affect the global outlook and experience of the American students remaining in those programs; they will not have the opportunity to learn about foreign cultures directly from members of those cultures. What distinguishes the decline of talent insourcing from the rise of job outsourcing is that the former can be easily rectified by a policy change of the United States government.

The answer to which of the following questions would be most useful in evaluating the author's claim regarding the impact of decreased insourcing in America?


What is the cost to reverse the trend of insourcing in America?


How does insourcing replace domestic jobs lost from outsourcing?


Since 2001, what has been the decrease in the number of foreign-born students in America?


What opportunities do American graduate students have to interact regularly with foreigners who are not students?


What effect would a government policy have on the number of foreign graduate students?

Please post the time you took for solving the same!

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by essaysnark » Sat Nov 05, 2011 11:49 am
Hey gmatblood - tough one!

This is what we came up with in 4:13:

If "the author's claim regarding the impact of decreased insourcing" is that (among other things) it will limit American students'"opportunity to learn about foreign cultures directly from members of those cultures", then "the question would be most useful in evaluating" this claim would be D.

We got totally hung up on this at first because we were initially locked onto the first "impact" statement about "America's competitiveness in basic research and applied technology" -- but none of the questions directly relates to that at all!!

Can't wait to learn the OA when you are ready to reveal it!

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by nidhis.1408 » Wed Nov 09, 2011 8:51 am
4.30 mins. i think its E. essaysnark says D "What opportunities do American graduate students have to interact regularly with foreigners who are not students?" but 'interact regularly with foreigners who are not student'- does this make any sense?

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by essaysnark » Wed Nov 09, 2011 9:05 am
Hey nidhis.1408 - yeah we'd considered E before, too. But we don't think that's right because the prompt is asking about the author's claim re IMPACT.

We see two statements of "impact" in the passage:

1) "The decrease in such insourcing will hurt America's competitiveness in basic research and applied technology"
and
2) American graduate students "will not have the opportunity to learn about foreign cultures directly from members of [foreign] cultures"

The only choice from the five that seems to directly relate to either of these is, in our assessment, D.

A: "cost to reverse the trend" doesn't relate to "impact"
B: nothing in the passage mentions anything about insourcing replacing domestic jobs lost
C: This is a possible right answer - though it still doesn't point directly to "impact"
D: EssaySnark's logic: If American students have other opportunities to interact w/ foreigners, then the "impact" of less insourcing is minimized - the students can get their "opportunity to learn about foreign cultures" elsewhere, and it negates that as a problem from insourcing. If we are "evaluating the author's claim" then we'd need to know the bigger picture, and this question is the only one that would give us new information related to one of the two "impact" statements.
E: We interpret this to be talking about a potential solution, not about the impact of the problem, that's why we ruled it out

Maybe we're totally wrong though!! gmatblood, are you gonna tell us the OA? :-)

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by saketk » Wed Nov 09, 2011 9:52 am
I took some 3mins 30 secs. +- 5 secs.

I agree with EssaySnark on this one. Answer should be D


And Yeah, this is a tough question.

My reasoning --

Option A - looks out of scope to me. What has cost to do with this trend?

Option B - Author has not really discussed the relationship between 'in-sourcing' and 'domestic jobs'. The author is merely talking about the impact of decrease in number of foreign born students the USA


Option C - Well the answer to this question will not give us any insight into this matter. Stats won't help us evaluate the impact.


Option D - Bingo! this should be the answer. The main point of the author's claim is --

Not enough opportunities for American students to learn about foreign culture. Reason -- Less students means less interaction.

What option D is doing is that it helps us find other Sources from where American students can gain enough knowledge about foreign culture. For this we need to know what opportunities do American students have to interact with people outside the college. For example - Professionals from various sectors.

Option E - This cannot be the right answer because the author stated in the last few lines that the main difference between 'insourcing' and 'outsourcing' is that the latter can be easily addressed by changing govt. policies. What does this mean? - this simply means that the author believes that 'insourcing' issue cannot be treated successfully by changing govt policies. We have to assume this info as true and thus eliminate this choice.
Option C -

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by nidhis.1408 » Wed Nov 09, 2011 10:34 am
@Essaysnark i never considered the option that American students can have opportunity to interact with foreigners who are not student. i was rigid in thinking that only students can interact with students. Maybe you are right.