zz0vlb wrote:
Some of the greatest American entrepreneurs of the 20th century started their business ventures while they were still in college, and could not complete their education as a result. It is possible that had they started their businesses any later, they would not have been as successful.
From the above two statements, it can only be proven that
(A) sometimes, it can be worthwhile to sacrifice an immediate gain for a larger benefit.
(B) education is not always useful.
(C) it pays not to complete an education.
(D) entrepreneurs who start their ventures after completing their education are not as successful as those who start off while still in college.
(E) you do not have to be educated to be an entrepreneur.
fameatop wrote:
Hi Mike,
I am not able to get how come option D is incorrect and A is correct. Can you show me how to perform FACT test on these two options. Waiting eagerly,as always, for your superb explanation. Regards, Fame
Fame,
First of all, this is an atrocious question. I don't know the source, but this question looks like it was written by a teenager. The prompt "
it can be proven that" is not at the GMAT level of formality, and the diction, especially use of the pronoun "
you", is abysmal. I'll say, in passing, both
(B) &
(E), for which many on this page fell, play on the distinction "
education" vs. "
a complete college education" ---- somebody who completes high school and finishes the first couple years of college has plenty of education, more than the majority of people on the planet. Yes, they didn't need to complete their college education to be a successful entrepreneur, but that doesn't say that the education they got didn't help them. Playing on an old book title, "Everything I needed to know about being an entrepreneur I learned in high school" --- that refutes both
(B) &
(E).
Choice
(D) is easy to dispatch with the FACT test. The prompt contains the word "
SOME" --- that word should leap out at you like a lightning bolt. The very fact that "some" entrepreneurs follow this pattern suggest that others follow another pattern. If some entrepreneur out there finished college, got two academic masters degrees, an MBA, a JD, and then a Ph.D, and
then went on to found a multi-billion dollar technology company, that would not contradict anything in the passage (which is only about "some" entrepreneurs, not all!), but it blatantly contradicts
(D).
Let's consider the opposite of
(A). The opposite of "
sometimes" is "
never". Thus, the opposite of
(A) would be:
It never can be worthwhile to sacrifice an immediate gain for a larger benefit.
In addition to being a patently absurd statement on its own, this statement directly contradict the passage ---- those folks sacrificed the immediate gain of completing a college education, a readily attainable goal in their environment, and took the risk of pursuing a larger possible benefit, a successful company.
Admittedly, the wording is not perfectly clear. This question is really well below the standards set by the GMAT.
Does all this make sense?
Mike