GMAT Tip of the Week The Overly Specific Question Stem

For most of our lives, we ask and answer relatively generic questions: Hows it going? What are you up to this weekend? What time do the Cubs play tonight? And think about it, what if those questions were more specific: Are you in a melancholy mood today? Are you and Josh going to dinner at Don Antonios tonight and ordering table-side guacamole? Do the Cubs play at 7:05 tonight on WGN? If someone is asking those questions instead, youre probably a bit suspicious. Why so specific? Whats your angle? The same is true on the GMAT. Most of the question stems you see are relatively generic: What is the value of x? Which of the following would most weaken the authors argument? So when the question stem get a little too specific, you should become a bit suspicious. Whats the test going for there? Why so specific? The overly-specific Critical Reasoning question stem is a great example. Consider the problem: Raisins are made by drying grapes in the sun. Although some of the sugar in the grapes is caramelized in the process, nothing is added. Moreover, the only thing removed from the grapes is the water that evaporates during the drying, and water contains no calories or nutrients. The fact that raisins contain more iron per food calorie than grapes do is thus puzzling. Which one of the following, if true, most helps to explain why raisins contain more iron per calorie than do grapes? (A) Since grapes are bigger than raisins, it takes several bunches of grapes to provide the same amount of iron as a handful of raisins does. (B) Caramelized sugar cannot be digested, so its calories do not count toward the food calorie content of raisins. (C) The body can absorb iron and other nutrients more quickly from grapes than from raisins because of the relatively high water content of grapes. (D) Raisins, but not grapes, are available year-round, so many people get a greater share of their yearly iron intake from raisins than from grapes. (E) Raisins are often eaten in combination with other iron-containing foods, while grapes are usually eaten by themselves. Look at that question stem: a quick scan naturally shows you that you need to explain/resolve a paradox, but the question goes into even more detail for you. It reaffirms the exact nature of the paradox its not about iron, but instead that that raisins contain more iron per calorie than grapes do. By adding that extra description into the question stem, the testmaker is practically yelling at you, Make sure you consider caloriesdont just focus on iron! And therefore, you should be prepared for  the  correct answer B, the only one that addresses calories, and deftly avoid answers A, C, D, and E, which all focus only on iron (and do so tangentially to the paradox). Strategically speaking, if a Critical Reasoning question stem gets overly specific, you should pay particular attention to the specificity thereits most likely directing you to the operative portion of the argument. Overly specific questions are most helpful in Data Sufficiency questions (and that same logic will help on Problem Solving too, as youll see). The testmaker knows that youve trained your entire algebraic life to solve for individual variables. So how can a question author use that lifetime of repetition against you? By asking you to solve for a specific combination that doesnt require you to find the individual values. Consider this example, which appears courtesy the Official Guide for GMAT Quantitative Review: If x^2 + y^2 = 29, what is the value of (x y)^2? (1) xy = 10 (2) x = 5 Two major clues should stand out to you that you need to Leverage Assets on this problem. For one, using both statements together (answer choice C) is dead easy. If xy = 10 and x = 5 then y = 2 and you can solve for any combination of x and y that anyone could ever ask for. But secondly and more subtly, the question stem should jump out as a classic way-too-specific, Leverage Assets question stem. They asked for a really, really specific value: (x y)^2. Now, immediately upon seeing that specificity you should be thinking, Thats too specifictheres probably a way to solve for that exact value without getting x and y individually. That thought process alone tells you where to spend your time you want to really leverage Statement 1 to try to make it work alone. And if youre still unconvinced, consider what the specificity does: the squared portion removes the question of negative vs. positive from the debate, removing one of the most common reasons that a seemingly-sufficient statement just wont work. And, furthermore, the common quadratic (x y)^2 shares an awful lot in common with the x^2 and y^2 elsewhere in the question stem. If you expand the parentheses, you have What is x^2 2xy + y^2? meaning that youre already 2/3 of the way there (so to speak), since theyve spotted you the sum x^2 + y^2. The important strategy here is that the overly-specific question stem should scream LEVERAGE ASSETS and You dont need to solve for x and ytheres probably a way to solve directly for that exact combination. Since you know that youre solving for the expanded x^2 2xy + y^2, and you already know that x^2 + y^2 = 29, youre really solving for 29 2xy. Since you know from Statement 1 that xy = 20, then 29 2xy will be 29 2(10), which is 9. Statement 1 alone is sufficient, even though you dont know what x and y are individually. And one of the major signals that you should recognize to help you get there is the presence of an overly specific question stem. So remember, in a world of generic questions, the oddly specific question should arouse a bit of suspicion: the interrogator is up to something! On the GMAT, you can use that to your advantage an overly specific Critical Reasoning question usually tells you exactly which keywords are the most important, and an overly specific Data Sufficiency question stem begs for you to leverage assets and find a way to get the most out of each statement. Getting ready to take the GMAT? We have free online GMAT seminars running all the time. And as always, be sure to follow us on  Facebook, YouTube,  Google+  and Twitter! By Brian Galvin.