Introduction
Data Sufficiency’s new Verbal Reasoning questions add a completely new dimension and hence, excitement to the exam. Yes, I said excitement. And once you solve this 645+ DS verbal reasoning official question with us in this article, you will also say the same!
In the previous article, we decoded conditions on textual information to answer the DS question using the DS framework. In this article, we will take it up a notch and see how to decipher conditions and apply them to tabulated data.
Our goal here is simple: to give you the tools and understanding needed to confidently tackle any Verbal Reasoning question you encounter in the GMAT.
Let’s get started.
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Process to be used to solve these questions
Regardless of the type of verbal reasoning DS question, we should always use the following process:
- Own the dataset.
- Visualize the approach to answer the question asked.
- Execute the approach using the DS solution framework.
Let’s see this process in action.
Conditions Applied on Tabulated Data
Question
Here is a Difficult 645+ Level Official question.
Four book lovers have recently met and are not sure of the topics that interest the others. The table indicates the topics that interest each of them with – marks and those that do not with cross marks (Xs).
| Topic | Alex | Beika | Carlos | Deepa |
| History | x | x | – | x |
| Humor | x | – | x | – |
| Language | x | x | – | – |
| Philosophy | – | – | – | x |
| Science Fiction | – | x | – | – |
One of these persons will gift another of these persons two books, each on a different one of the listed topics. Will at least one of the two books fall under the recipient’s broad topic of interest?
(1) One topic is science fiction and the other is humor.
(2) The intended recipient is Carlos.
Step-by-Step Solution
Watch this video in which Payal solves this question using the framework.
Summary
Let’s summarize the salient features of this question.
- Question
- Conditions presented for gifting.
- Tabulated information given about 4 friends and 5 book categories
- Our approach
- Extracted the passage in our notes
- Took examples to understand the table thoroughly
- Executed the DS approach
- Observations
- We did not refer to the passage once we understood the table thoroughly.
- Even though the two statements provided different kinds of information – while statement 1 provided information about the topics, statement 2 provided information about the recipient – we were able to efficiently use the table to answer the question.
Now apply these learnings to these practice questions that are different versions of this official question.
WHERE ARE THESE SKILLS TAUGHT IN THE E-GMAT COURSE
We teach you these skills in a progressive architecture in specially created Data Sufficiency course. After learning the basics of Data Sufficiency questions, students further hone their process by solving quant-based Data Sufficiency questions and then they start the verbal reasoning module.
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Practice Questions
Version 1: Changed the question only as highlighted.
Four book lovers have recently met and are not sure of the topics that interest the others. The table indicates the topics that interest each of them with – marks and those that do not with cross marks (Xs).
| Topic | Alex | Beika | Carlos | Deepa |
| History | x | x | – | x |
| Humor | x | – | x | – |
| Language | x | x | – | – |
| Philosophy | – | – | – | x |
| Science Fiction | – | x | – | – |
One of these persons will gift another of these persons two books, each on a different one of the listed topics. Will both books fall under the recipient’s broad topic of interest?
(1) One topic is science fiction and the other is humor.
(2) The intended recipient is Carlos.
Version 2: Question and Statements changed as highlighted.
Four book lovers have recently met and are not sure of the topics that interest the others. The table indicates the topics that interest each of them with – marks and those that do not with cross marks (Xs).
| Topic | Alex | Beika | Carlos | Deepa |
| History | x | x | – | x |
| Humor | x | – | x | – |
| Language | x | x | – | – |
| Philosophy | – | – | – | x |
| Science Fiction | – | x | – | – |
One of these persons will gift another of these persons two books, each on a different one of the listed topics. Will both books fall under the recipient’s broad topic of interest?
(1) One topic is history and the other is philosophy.
(2) Deepa gives the gifts.
Next in this article series
In the next article, we will explore the third version of DS questions that test verbal reasoning – “Exploring Comparisons”.
Stay tuned!
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Cheat Sheet for practice questions
Version 1
- Statement 1 gives the answer No for all 3 except Deepa. So, not sufficient.
- Statement 2 is sufficient since for Carlos the answer is no.
- A student who says that 2 is not sufficient, faltered at DS question “yes/no” format.
Version 2
Four book lovers have recently met and are not sure of the topics that interest the others. The table indicates the topics that interest each of them with – marks and those that do not with cross marks (Xs).
| Topic | Alex | Beika | Carlos | Deepa |
| History | x | x | – | x |
| Humor | x | – | x | – |
| Language | x | x | – | – |
| Philosophy | – | – | – | x |
| Science Fiction | – | x | – | – |
One of these persons will gift another of these persons two books, each on a different one of the listed topics. Will both books fall under the recipient’s broad topic of interest?
(1) One topic is history and the other is philosophy.
(2) Deepa gives the gifts.
Statement 1 – For all the answer is no except Carlos. So not sufficient.
Statement 2 – Not sufficient since it does not matter who gives the gifts.
Together – not sufficient
