Half the time Statements A and B are both insufficient?

[and1ms238]

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?

[shashank.ism]

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...

[Ian Stewart]

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.

[shashank.ism]

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...

[jamesacorrea]

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.