Veritas prep GMAT advanced verbal strategy

Brian Galvin
Chris Kane

Advanced
Verbal Strategy


Authors

Brian Galvin
Chris Kane

Co-founders

Markus Moberg
Chad Troutwine

Contributing Writers

Neil Moakley
David Newland
Ashley Newman-Owens

Contributing Editor

Jodi Brandon

Cover Design

Nick Mason

Interior Design

Tom Ahn
Dennis Anderson

ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. Printed in the U.S.A.
Third Edition, Copyright © 2013 by Veritas Prep, LLC.
GMAT® is a registered trademark of the Graduate
Management Admissions Council, which is not affiliated with
this book.
No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in
a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any
means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or
otherwise without the prior written permission of Veritas
Prep, LLC.
All the materials within are the exclusive property of Veritas
Prep, LLC. © 2013.
Print Batch 2013.1


This book is dedicated to Veritas Prep’s instructors, whose enthusiasm and experience
have contributed mightily to our educational philosophy and our students’ success.
It is also dedicated to the teachers who inspired Veritas Prep’s instructors. The lesson
that follows was only made possible by a lifelong love of learning and of undertaking
educational challenges; we have teachers around the world to thank for that.
Finally and most importantly, this book is dedicated to our thousands of students, who
have taught us more about teaching and learning than they will ever know. And to you,
the reader, thank you for adding yourself to that group.

Personal Dedications

Veritas Prep is a community of educators, students, and support staff, and these books
would not be possible without our cast of thousands. We thank you all, but would like to
specifically acknowledge the following people for their inspiration:
Bogdan Andriychenko (GMAT Club), Clay Christensen (Harvard Business School), Tom
Cotner (Plymouth-Salem High School), David Cromwell (Yale School of Management),
Henry Grubb (Fort Osage High School), Dana Jinaru (Beat the GMAT), Steven Levitt
(University of Chicago), Walter Lewin (Massachusetts Institute of Technology), Lawrence
Rudner (Graduate Management Admissions Council), Jeff Stanzler (University of
Michigan), and Robert Weber (Kellogg School of Management).



table of contents

TABLE OF CONTENTS
PREVIEW . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7
How This Book Is Structured. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8
LESSON. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13
Introduction to Advanced Verbal . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13
Advanced Verbal and the Veritas Prep Pyramid. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14
SECTION 1: Advanced critical reasoning . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15
Best Completes the Passage.........................................................................................15
Clever Wordplay................................................................................................................18
Statistics...............................................................................................................................22
Mental Inertia....................................................................................................................29
Advanced Critical Reasoning Summary....................................................................36
SECTION 2: Advanced sentence correction. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 37
Misdirection: Hiding the Correct Answer.................................................................38
Misdirection: Selling the Incorrect Answer..............................................................47
The Whole Sentence Matters.......................................................................................53

Advanced Sentence Correction Summary...............................................................57
SECTION 3: Advanced Reading Comprehension . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 58
Advanced Reading Comprehension Summary......................................................70
HOMEWORK . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 73
Answer key. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 111


CR E ATING Think Like the Testmaker
Creating is the top of the pyramid in Bloom’s Taxonomy. When you have completely mastered
the GMAT, you are able to Think Like the Testmaker. You are on top of the pyramid looking down!
You don’t just have good content knowledge and lots of practice with GMAT problems; you
understand how a problem has been made, what makes it hard, and how to break it down. When
you Think Like the Testmaker you can:
1.

Quickly recognize what the problem is actually asking,

2.

Discover hidden information and manipulate it to make it useful,

3.

Recognize and see through trap answers, and

4.

Create your own plan of attack for any problem.

APPLYING Skills Meet Strategy

What makes the GMAT difficult is not so much the underlying skills and concepts, but rather the
way those skills and concepts are tested. On the GMAT, what you know is only as valuable as
what you can do with that knowledge. The Veritas Prep curriculum emphasizes learning through
challenging problems so that you can:
1.

Learn how to combine skills and strategies to effectively solve any GMAT problem,

2.

Most effectively utilize the classroom time you spend with a true GMAT expert, and

3.

Stay focused and engaged, even after a long day in the office.

R E M E M BE R ING Skillbuilder
In order to test higher-level thinking skills, testmakers must have some underlying content from
which to create problems. On the GMAT, this content is primarily:
•

Math curriculum through the early high school level, and

•

Basic grammar skills through the elementary school level.

To succeed on the GMAT you must have a thorough mastery of this content, but many students
already have a relatively strong command of this material. For each content area, we have
identified all core skills that simply require refreshing and/or memorizing and have put them in

our Skillbuilder section. By doing this:
1.

Students who need to thoroughly review or relearn these core skills can do so at their
own pace, and

2.

Students who already have a solid command of the underlying content will not
become disengaged because of a tedious review of material they’ve already mastered.


preview

PREVIEW
preview

As you learned in the Foundations of GMAT Logic lesson, the educational philosophy at
Veritas Prep is based on the multi-tiered Bloom’s Taxonomy of Educational Objectives,
which classifies different orders of thinking in terms of understanding and complexity.
To achieve a high score on the GMAT, it is essential that you understand the test from
the top of the pyramid. On the pages that follow, you will learn specifically how to
achieve that goal and how this lesson in particular relates to the Veritas Prep Pyramid.

7


How This Book Is Structured
Our Curriculum Is Designed to Maximize Your Time
The Veritas Prep Teaching Philosophy: Learning by Doing

Business schools have long featured the Case Method of education, providing students
with real-world problems to solve by applying the frameworks they have studied. The
Veritas Prep Learning by Doing method is similar. In class, you will spend your time
applying skills and concepts to challenging GMAT problems, at the same time reviewing
and better understanding core skills while focusing your attention on application and
strategy. The Case Method in business school maximizes student engagement and
develops higher-order thinking skills, because students must apply and create, not just
remember. Similarly, the Learning by Doing philosophy maximizes the value of your
study time, forcing you to engage with difficult questions and develop top-of-thepyramid reasoning ability.
An important note on Learning by Doing: In business school, your goal with a
business case is not to simply master the details of a particular company’s historical
situation, but rather to develop broader understanding of how to apply frameworks
to real situations. In this course, you should be certain to reflect on each question not
simply through that narrow lens (Did you answer correctly? What key word made the
difference?), but rather as an example of larger GMAT strategy (How could the exam
bait you with a similar trap? How deeply do you need to understand the content to
solve this genre of problem more efficiently?).

8


preview
How This Book Is Structured

As you learned in the Foundations of GMAT Logic lesson, there are
important recurring themes that you will see in most GMAT problems:

•
•
•

•
•
•
•

Abstraction
Reverse-Engineering
Large or Awkward Numbers
Exploiting Common Mistakes
Selling the Wrong Answer and Hiding the Correct Answer
Misdirection
Content-Specific Themes

Skills M eet Strategy
•
•
•

Guiding Principles
Problem-Solving Strategies
Leveraging Assets

9

preview

Th in k Like th e Testmaker

remember : Don’t mistake
activity for achievement!

Focus on recurring themes,
not just underlying content.


Each book in the Veritas Prep curriculum contains four distinct sections:
1.Skillbuilder. We strongly suggest that you complete each Skillbuilder
lesson before class at your own pace, and return to the Skillbuilder when you
recognize a content deficiency through practice tests and GMAT homework
problem sets.
The Skillbuilder section will:
•

Cover content that is vital to your success on the GMAT, but is best
learned at your own pace outside the classroom.

•

Allow you to review and/or relearn the skills, facts, formulas, and content
of the GMAT. Each student will have his own set of skills that are “rusty” or
even brand-new, and will find other items that come back quickly.

•

Vary in length significantly for each book, based on the number of
underlying concepts. (For instance, the Advanced Verbal lesson does
not have a Skillbuilder because you are already building on the concepts
introduced in three previous lessons.)

2.Lesson. The lessons are designed to provide students with maximum value
added from an instructor by:

•

Doing in-class problems together (Learning by Doing), and

•

Analyzing those problems for the recurring takeaways.



With each problem, there will be a detailed explanation that will help you
understand how the problem is testing a particular concept or series of
concepts, what makes the problem hard, and what underlying skills are
required to solve it.



When relevant, there will be particular boxes for Think Like the Testmaker,
Skills Meet Strategy, and Skillbuilder when you should be focused on
particular aspects of how the question is made or how the underlying
content is being tested.

   N O T E : When doing in-class and homework problems, you should do your
work below the problem, and you should not circle the answer on the
actual question (just note it on the bottom of the page). That way, if you
want to redo problems, you can simply cover up your work and proceed
as if you had never done it.

10

preview
How This Book Is Structured

3.You Oughta Know. The You Oughta Know sections will round out each lesson
and cover:
Obscure topics that arise infrequently.

•

More advanced topics that are not common on the GMAT but do get
tested.



While these uncommon content areas do not warrant in-class time, we
believe you should have some exposure to these topics before taking the
GMAT. Therefore you should complete these sections before moving to
the homework problems. As with the Skillbuilders, the length of these will
vary depending on their importance.

preview

•

4.Homework Problems. In many ways, the homework problems are the most
important part of each book. After refreshing core content in the Skillbuilder
and then applying that knowledge in the lesson, you must reinforce your
understanding with more problems.
Each question is accompanied by a detailed explanation in your online

student account, as well as a quick-reference answer key on the last page.
A majority of questions are above the 50th percentile in difficulty, and they
are arranged in approximate order of difficulty (easiest to most difficult). By
completing all of the homework problems, you will learn all of the different
iterations of how concepts and skills are tested on the GMAT.
Homework problems are designed to be challenging, so do not despair if
you are answering questions incorrectly as you practice! Your goal should
be to learn from every mistake. Students can miss a significant percentage of
questions in each book and still score extremely high on the GMAT, provided
that they learn from each problem. Embrace the challenge of hard problems
and the notion that every mistake you make in practice is one that you will
know to avoid on the GMAT when every question counts.

11


12


LESSON
Advanced Verbal: Introduction

LESSON
Introduction to Advanced Verbal
At this point in the verbal curriculum, you have learned the themes and question types
that you will see on the GMAT, as well as strategies to attack them. So what will you
learn in this Advanced Verbal book?
There exists a point, somewhere around the 75th or 80th percentile, at which the
population of test-takers has proven beyond a reasonable doubt that they understand
the material. Until this point, you can succeed simply by knowing more things or

understanding concepts better than other test-takers. Beyond that, strategy is the name
of the game: It’s much more about what you can do with that knowledge and strategy.
The further you go above the 75th percentile, the harder it becomes for the GMAT
to differentiate between who “gets it” and who “really, really gets it.” This book
is about how they do that. The authors of the GMAT know your tricks and shortcuts
better than you do; they know which strategies students lean on and perhaps overuse.
On the upper-difficulty problems, they often use your crutches against you; the test
“zigs” when your hours of study and repetition make you certain that it will “zag.”

LESSON

More than anything, this book is designed to give you a look inside the
testmaker’s playbook—to show you how the authors of the GMAT can take
particular question types and make them incrementally more difficult and
frustrating for test-takers. The skills and strategies that you have studied so far will
be instrumental in solving these problems, but to truly feel prepared for the hardest
verbal questions on the GMAT you must get “inside the GMAT authors’ studio.” You will
learn classic GMAT techniques like misdirection (beware: The idiomatic expression you
want or expect to see is not always attached to the correct answer), clever wordplay
(remember: “Some” and “not all” have very significant differences), and the authors’
keen understanding of how to use your own mental inertia against you.
With this lesson, you should learn not to fear the test and its “traps,” but instead to
appreciate its subtleties. If you have seen the nuances used on hard questions, you can
learn to anticipate and notice them, and you can even learn to enjoy the test’s unique
style of difficulty and embrace it as your own competitive advantage.

13


Advanced Verbal and the Veritas Prep Pyramid

Because this lesson is about advanced applications, it has a slightly different format
from the other books. First, there is no Skillbuilder, because the previous four
verbal lessons have provided the foundation for this lesson. Second, the goal
of this lesson is to learn how to think like the testmaker and understand how the
authors of the GMAT make verbal questions hard. As a result, the takeaway pages
following each question are focused almost exclusively on the broader “Think
Like the Testmaker” thought process. This lesson is about the top of the pyramid—
about how to recognize the tricks and traps used by testmakers to make problems
hard. You will also see more specific strategy boxes when appropriate, but the
usual Learning by Doing and Skillbuilder boxes are omitted, as the goal of this
lesson is to provide the “top of the pyramid” perspective. Also, there is no “You
Oughta Know” section, as all of the important advanced applications are discussed in
the lesson. The important core concepts/skills for Sentence Correction from the Veritas
Prep Pyramid are given below:
“Core Skills” from Skillbuilder
• Argument Structure
• Common Logical Fallacies
• Grammar Rules by Error Type (IMPACTS)

“Skills Meet Strategy” Takeaways from the Lesson Section
• Decision Points
• SWIM Categorization
• STOP Reading Techniques
• Slash and Burn
• Learning by Doing

“Think Like the Testmaker” Takeaways from the Lesson Section
• Selling the Wrong Answer
• Hiding the Correct Answer
• Misdirection

• Abstraction
• Content-Specific Themes

14


1

section 1: advanced critical reasoning
Best Completes the Passage

SECTION 1: Advanced Critical Reasoning
By now, you are a master of breaking down argument structure and recognizing flaws in
logic. You can quickly identify SWIM question types and efficiently read paragraphs with
your role in mind. So how does the GMAT make Critical Reasoning more difficult for you?
· It phrases questions so that you have to supply the question stem yourself.
· It landmines questions with clever wordplay that diverts your attention from what
is important.
· It preys on your natural inclination to accept statistical evidence as proof of a
conclusion that it does not quite support.
· It creates questions about topics that arouse your own opinions and interests, taking
your focus away from the parameters of the question.
In this section we will address all of these tactics and help you to recognize and navigate
them. Let’s begin with an example of “you supply the question stem yourself”:

Best Completes the Passage
1. Which of the following best completes the passage below?

In testing for food allergies, a false positive result occurs when a person is said
to be allergic to a particular food when, in fact, he is not allergic to that food. A
false negative result indicates that a person is not allergic to the food when, in
fact, he is. To most accurately determine food allergies, a physician should use
the test that gives the smallest percentage of false negative results because

LESSON



.
(A) some food allergies cause reactions severe enough to be life-threatening
(B) none of the tests for food allergies have lasting side effects
(C) in diagnosing food allergies it is important to be as thorough as
possible, since most people with one known food allergy have other
undiscovered food allergies
(D) the proportion of tests that do not provide a clear result is the same for
all tests of food allergies
(E) all tests for food allergies have the same proportion of false positive
results

15


Think Like the Testmaker
Hiding the Question Type and Using Your Mental Inertia
The previous question illustrates several important constructs for this lesson. First
it introduces you to the “best completes the passage” format, in which you need to
infer the question stem from the language immediately preceding the portion to be
completed. Here that word is “because,” which seeks evidence for a conclusion. And

that conclusion is “in order to most accurately determine food allergies, doctors should
use the test with the smallest percentage of false negatives.” The goal in this question
is clearly to strengthen that conclusion.
With this in mind, you are now set up for another common trap that you will see
later in this lesson—one in which the author of the question knows where your
mind wants to go and baits you in that direction. When you think of an allergy (or
really any medical diagnosis), what is your biggest fear? Probably that the doctor will
miss a diagnosis and allow you to continue with a risky behavior that could negatively
affect your quality of life. Say, for example, that you are allergic to peanuts, but your
doctor falsely says that you’re not. (false negative) Your next peanut butter sandwich
could be catastrophic! On the flip side, if the doctor tells you that you are allergic to
peanuts when it turns out you’re not, that’s more of an inconvenience than anything.
It’s a bummer to not enjoy Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups, but it’s not life-threatening.
So, naturally, your mind wants to minimize false negatives, to err on the side of safety.
But what’s the conclusion? To most accurately (not most safely!) determine allergies,
you should eliminate false negatives. For this specific objective, false positives are just
as detrimental as false negatives; each is inaccurate. So the correct answer needs to give
you some reason why you are only focusing on false negatives if the goal is accuracy.
Answer choice E, which does not relate to safety (but neither does the conclusion), is
correct, as it shows that false positives will be the same for each test, so the only way to
become more accurate is to minimize false negatives.
Specifics of this question aside, it is important that you are prepared for this particular
question type. With increasing frequency, Critical Reasoning questions ask
“Which of the following best completes the passage below?”—a question stem
with no clues as to what it intends to ask. To categorize such questions, focus on
the word or phrase that introduces the answers; use the introductory wording to
determine the form of the answer and from that infer the type of question.

16

1

section 1: advanced critical reasoning
Best Completes the Passage

Skills Meet Strategy
Don’t Hijack the Conclusion
As you hopefully remember from the Critical Reasoning lesson, the “Conclusion Is King”
on Strengthen and Weaken questions. Most errors that people make on these questions
involve the conclusion. You must precisely assess the wording in the conclusion and
make sure that the premise you insert is improving or weakening that exact conclusion.
This problem is a perfect example of how you can gloss over a conclusion and make
it your own. The problem is not about safety; it’s about accuracy! Make sure you read
every word carefully and don’t hijack the conclusion.

Skills Meet Strategy
Dealing with “Best Completes the Passage” Questions
Any time you are given a “best completes the passage” question, the categorization
will be tricky, and you should take extra time to figure out what type of question it is.
To become better at categorizing “best completes the passage” questions, consult the
examples and table below for trigger language used frequently in these questions.
…Thus, the loss to the company will be quite small because

. (Weaken)

LESSON

… should not be used because

. (Strengthen)

. (Inference)

…it should be expected that
Introductory Wording

Answer is...

Type(s) of Questions

Because, For example, In
fact, or Since

Premise

Strengthen (if justifying)
Weaken (if undermining)

As a result, Expect that,
Hence, Therefore, or Thus

Conclusion

Inference

Flaw is

Description or indication
of gap logic

Weaken/Method

17


Clever Wordplay
Many Critical Reasoning problems are difficult primarily because people gloss over
subtle differences in meaning between an idea expressed in the stimulus and a
concept provided in an answer choice. With so many details in each question and so
many questions in rapid succession, this tendency is certainly understandable, but not
forgivable—at least not once you have been exposed to this commonly used trick!
Consider two examples:

2. Criminals released from prison on parole have generally been put under
routine supervision. A recent program has allowed criminals to leave prison
early under intensive supervision; they must obey curfews and in some cases
they must be electronically monitored. The percentage of released criminals
arrested while under supervision is the same for intensive supervision as for
routine supervision, so intensive supervision is no more effective than routine
supervision in preventing criminals from committing additional crimes.


Which one of the following is an assumption on which the argument relies?
(A) The criminals under intensive supervision, but not those under routine
supervision, were required to work or attend school during their
supervision period.
(B) All of the criminals who were arrested while under routine supervision
had been in prison more than once before being paroled and put
under supervision.

(C) The proportion of arrests to crimes committed was not significantly
higher for criminals under intensive supervision than those under
routine supervision.
(D)Of the criminals arrested while under intensive supervision, some
would not have committed crimes if they had been under routine
supervision.
(E) The number of criminals put under routine supervision was not
significantly greater than the number of criminals put under intensive
supervision.

18


1

section 1: advanced critical reasoning
Clever Wordplay

3.Citizen: Each year since 1970, a new record has been set for the number of
murders committed in this city. This fact points to the decreasing ability of our
law enforcement system to prevent violent crime.


City Official: You overlook the fact that the city’s population has risen steadily
since 1970. In fact, the number of murder victims per 100 people has actually
fallen slightly in the city since 1970.
Which one of the following, if true, would most strongly counter the city
official’s response?

(A) The incidence of fraud has greatly increased in the city since 1970.

(B) The rate of murders in the city since 1970 decreased according to the
age group of the victim, decreasing more for younger victims.
(C) Murders and other violent crimes are more likely to be reported now
than they were in 1970.
(D) The number of law enforcement officials in the city has increased at a
rate judged by city law enforcement experts to be sufficient to serve
the city’s increased population.

LESSON

(E) If the healthcare received by assault victims last year had been of the
same quality as it was in 1970, the murder rate in the city last year
would have turned out to be several times what it actually was.

19


Think Like the Testmaker
Wordplay and Hiding the Correct Answer
In the first example (#2), the clever wordplay is the important difference between
“committing a crime” and “being arrested.” Data about “being arrested” is not the same
as data about “committing a crime.” You could have been arrested 50 times and not
once have committed a crime. If 100 people were arrested in each group and then
you claim “Intensive supervision is not any better than routine supervision at keeping
people from COMMITTING crimes,” that is flawed. What if 80 of the 100 people in the
intensive group were actually committing crimes and only 20 of the 100 people in the
routine group were? That would show that indeed intensive supervision is much better
at keeping people from committing crimes. Correct answer choice C eliminates that
possibility and greatly improves the quality of the argument. With Critical Reasoning
questions, you must be on the constant lookout for subtle meaning differences,

as many questions hinge on this type of wordplay.
The second question (#3) does essentially the same thing, with the flaw in logic that
the murder rate only accounts for one type of violent crime. Correct answer choice E
points out that violent crimes are happening frequently; it’s only by the grace of the
healthcare system that the crimes are not categorized as murders, so the data used by
the city official is flawed. Again, a precision-in-wording disparity dooms the argument.
Also, the second question unveils another favored technique of the testmaker:
Answer choice E, the correct answer, is hidden behind introductory language
that seems way out of scope. If you stopped reading after eight to 10 words, you’re
not alone. The prelude to the premise seems woefully out of scope, so the testmakers
know that people will dismiss it. Healthcare doesn’t seem to have much to do with
crime—except that a patient whose life has been saved in the ER will not count as a
murder statistic. This question demonstrates a powerful takeaway: While on many
questions you may be able to correctly eliminate an answer choice after just a
few words, the GMAT will contain questions that punish you for not reading the
entire option. Some incorrect answers contain “bait” designed to entice you closer;
this is an example of a correct answer that camouflages itself as a throwaway answer.
Beware the curveball; if an answer choice seems oddly out of scope after a few words,
read on.

20


1

section 1: advanced critical reasoning
Clever Wordplay

Skills meet strategy
Removing Flaws/Assumption Negation Technique

In the Critical Reasoning lesson, you learned about the important assumption subtype
of Strengthen questions. In these questions, you are not so much strengthening the
question as you are removing a deeply embedded flaw. This thought process is more
confusing, because the answer choices are often presented negatively and it is hard to
anticipate the flaw. (You must rely on answer choices.) The first problem about crimes
and arrests is a great example: The correct answer removes a piece of information that,
if true, would greatly undermine the argument. If the proportion of arrests to crimes
committed was significantly higher for criminals under intensive supervision than
those under routine supervision, then this argument would be very weak. Answer
choice C says that is not the case, thus strengthening the argument. R E M E M B E R : If you
are confused by the negation, you should apply the Assumption Negation Technique
and read negatively worded answer choices affirmatively to see if they contradict the
conclusion.

Skills meet strategy
Answer the Proper Question

LESSON

Another important takeaway from the second problem is this: On any Strengthen or
Weaken question with multiple positions and/or negatively worded conclusions,
at least one of the answer choices will do the opposite of what you are being asked
to do in the question stem. In the example about murder and violent crime, many
students will pick answer choice C, which strengthens, not weakens, the city official’s
argument. Always make sure that you are answering the proper question, particularly
when the conclusion contains negation or multiple conclusions exist in the stimulus.

21

Statistics
The previous two questions are not merely examples of clever wordplay but also
examples of another important GMAT construct: improper use of data. People use
statistics improperly all the time, and it is important in business that you do not make
flawed conclusions from data. Millions of dollars could depend on it!
In recent years, the GMAT has trended toward the inclusion of more and more statisticsbased Critical Reasoning questions, and simultaneously has created the Integrated
Reasoning section, which integrates quantitative and verbal skills. To succeed in Critical
Reasoning, Reading Comprehension, and Integrated Reasoning, you need to be careful
when assessing or drawing conclusions based on statistics. Consider these statistics
and the flawed conclusions that accompany them:

1. Applications to the Princeton School of Management are down 10% this
year, so the school should worry that it will not be able to maintain its
high standards for incoming students.
2. The average GPA of the graduating class at Central High School is 20%
higher this year than it was last year. Therefore the current graduating
class is significantly better qualified to succeed in college compared to
last year’s class.
3. The average household income in the United States has increased by 2%
over the last year, so the average American is better off financially than
he was at this time last year.
4. Nearly 3% of all deaths are caused by traffic accidents, while only 0.15%
of deaths are caused by drug abuse. Clearly it is safer to abuse drugs than
to drive.

22


1

section 1: advanced critical reasoning
Statistics

Common Statistical Flaws
Recognize that statistics, even when “true” (as all premises on the GMAT will be), don’t
always lead directly to the conclusions that one might try to draw from them. In business,
a keen eye for which conclusions can appropriately be drawn from given statistics is
imperative to success, so look for the GMAT to test you on this concept repeatedly.
Commonly tested flaws using statistics include:
•

Wordplay—a statistic does not match directly the conclusion that follows
(e.g., arrests vs. crimes)
As you have seen in the previous questions, precision in wording is an ofttested concept on the GMAT. With statistics in particular, the authors of the
GMAT are able to take your eye off of the premise and conclusion, and invite
you to focus on the numbers. Know this: When you see statistics in Critical
Reasoning questions, there is almost always a flaw in logic. Read critically and
ensure that the numbers are tied to an apples-to-apples comparison.

•

Absolute Number vs. Percentage/Proportion

•

LESSON

Questions will often try to blind you with numbers in a situation that requires
percentages or proportions. For example, one could argue that Connecticut
does not carry its weight in contributing U.S. federal income taxes, because

it contributes only $54 billion per year, while California contributes well over
$300 billion. But that absolute number is misleading: Connecticut actually
contributes more federal tax money per citizen than any other state. It just
happens to have a relatively low population.
Unequal Basis Points/“Unweighted Averages”—uneven sample sizes are
compared to a common third pool (e.g., more people die from choking on
pretzels each year than are killed by great white sharks; therefore it is safer to
swim with sharks than to eat pretzels)
Perhaps the most “statistical” of statistical flaws, the unweighted average is
problematic. Consider the very famous statistic that “most traffic accidents
happen within 10 miles of the victim’s home.” Does that really mean that it’s
more dangerous to drive around your neighborhood than to drive in a remote
area that you do not know? Of course not. It’s just that the first and last 10
miles of nearly every trip you take are within 10 miles of your home. So a
massive percentage of your driving takes place there. Using the basis point “all
accidents” is misleading.

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•

Incongruent Samples—two “equivalent” statistics were not obtained in
the same fashion (e.g., a local, low-cost, part-time MBA program with no
application fee vs. Stanford GSB; even if the local program’s acceptance rate is
low, are its applicants analogous to Stanford’s?)

Often data is flawed because the statistics are simply not parallel. Even
statistics that are comparable (percentage to percentage) can have intervening
factors in their sample pools or collection procedures that leave them less
than concrete in proving a conclusion. For instance, Harvard has an extensive
(and expensive) application procedure and is known to have extremely high
admissions standards. For many it may simply not be worth the time and
application fee to apply without a high likelihood of success. Other schools
may have lower barriers to application—famously, some undergraduate
schools have accepted applications through Twitter—that attract a high
number of applicants for a low number of seats, creating a low, seemingly
selective, acceptance rate that is in fact really not that selective.



Again, the difference may be clearest in wordplay. One can say that a school
“has a lower acceptance rate than Stanford,” but as soon as one takes the
statistic and concludes something in different terms (“more selective” is not
the same as “lower acceptance rate”) there exists a subtle gap in logic that an
answer choice can exploit.


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section 1: advanced critical reasoning
Statistics

4. Bicycle Safety Expert: Bicycling on the left half of the road is much more
likely to lead to collisions with automobiles than is bicycling on the right. After
all, in three different studies of bicycle-automobile collisions, the bicyclist was

riding on the left in 15, 17, and 25 percent of the cases, respectively.
Skeptic: But in places where a comparatively high percentage of bicyclists used
to ride on the left, there was surprisingly little decrease in collisions between
bicyclists and automobiles after bicycling on the left was made illegal.
One reason the strength of the bicycle safety expert’s argument cannot be
evaluated is that __________________.
(A) the statistics cited in support of the conclusion that bicycling on
the left is more likely to lead to collisions with automobiles already
presuppose the truth of that conclusion
(B) the statistics it cites do not include the percentage of bicycling that
took place on the left
(C) no statistics are provided on the proportion of bicycle accidents that
are due to bicycle-automobile collisions
(D) bicycling on the left is singled out for criticism without consideration
of other bicycling practices that are unsafe

LESSON

(E) it does not distinguish between places in which bicycling on the left is
legal and places in which it is illegal

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