A very silly querry... that was listed before...

[[email protected]]

I have a very silly question to ask but it directly relates to the format of the DS question on the GMAT. I will explain it to you using an example.

Stimulus: if a quadratic question is solved and let us say that the answer you got was:
x = 5 or x = -7
So basically only two options exist.

Statement 1:
x = 5 or by some other means you derive to x = 5 as the answer
Then statement 1 is sufficient.


Statement 2:
x = -7 or by some other means you again derived to x = -7 as the answer.
Then statement 2 is also sufficient.

Hence the correct answer is D. that is correct.

But there is a variation:

IF

statement 1 says x = 5 then it is sufficient.

but

Statement 2 says x = -7, then is the statement sufficient or no.

According to me the answer is sufficient because the stimulus says either x = 5 or x = -7. So if x not equal to -7 then only one option is left that is x = 5.

Hence the correct answer will come down 5. so even statement 2 will be sufficient correct.

but some question was presented on BTG that I do not know the location, it said that the correct answer is A and not D.

Statement 2 will not be sufficient because the statement says that x can be anything except for -7.

It can be any other number that we do not know.

So is statement 2 sufficient or no basically.;....

Could you please help me in this silly query.....

Thank You.

[patanjali.purpose]

IMO in 2nd case also answer is D because stimulus say x = 5 or -7 (nothing else)

[meesumkazmi]

I think the answer is D, but I also came across a similar situation where the quoted answer was A. some one please help.

[Mike@Magoosh]

Dear [email protected],

I'm happy to contribute my 2¢ to this discussion.

One thing to understand about DS on the GMAT and on all good GMAT test prep sources --- the two statements will always consistently support the same answer to the prompt. If the prompt is "what is x?", both statements have to be consistent with the same answer value of x. Therefore, a question where Statement #1 leads to answer of x = +5 and Statement #2 leads to answer of x = -7 is impossible on the real GMAT or on any good GMAT test prep source.

A caveat: there are many GMAT test prep businesses, of varying standards of quality, and I have seen many DS questions from less than reputable sources in which the two statements of a DS question lead to two different answers. I would say: if you are drawing questions from a source, and you find a DS question on which this is the case, that should make you highly suspicious of using that source at all as a reliable support for your GMAT prep.

The question you are asking should not be a question at all, and if you rely only on high quality GMAT Test Prep sources, it won't be a problem.

Does that make sense? Let me know if you have any further questions.

Mike