A dental licensure exam requires a 75% minimum score in orde

The condition for passing the test is based on 75% score, not the number of questions. Hence, the answer should ideally be 'E' unless it is mentioned that "each question carries equal weightage in the score.

Hi Bunuel,

Regarding option B:

(2) Jennifer answered one more question correctly on the third section than she did on the 28-question second section, which she passed.

When it is clearly mentioned that Jennifer answered one more question correctly, then why we are assuming that AT LEAST 22 questions were answered correctly.

Should it not only be 22 questions (21+1 =22), which will make B sufficient to Ans as No Jennifer did not pass the section.

Request you to please clear.

Thanks

Hi mandarmali,

The prompt makes NO mention of 'time', so your interpretation is questionable. In real basic terms, you have to work with the information that you're given - the prompt refers to a 'passing score' and the number of questions in the third section (and since 'time frames' were not discussed, we have to assume that 'half of the third section' refers to half of the questions).

GMAT assassins aren't born, they're made,
Rich

Veritas Prep OFFICIAL EXPLANATION

Statement 1 is tricky, but astute test-takers will leverage their assets, namely the fact that if there are only 30 questions total, then there are only 15 questions per half section. That means the MOST she could get right on the second half is 15, and since the second half had 8 more right answers than the first, the most she could have gotten right on the first half is 7 for a total maximum of 22 questions correct. Since she needs 75% to pass, and 22/30 is less than 75% (don't do the math - just realize that 75% is 3/4 which would be 22.5 out of 30), she cannot pass. Statement 1 guarantees that the answer is "no", and is therefore sufficient.

Statement 2 is not sufficient. If she passed the second section, that means she answered at least 21 questions correctly, meaning that she answered at least 22 correctly (one more than she did on section two) on section three. But since the magic number is 22.5 to have 75% correct, she may not have passed (22) or she may have passed (22 is the minimum, but she could theoretically have gotten as many as 29 right), this statement is not sufficient.

The correct answer is A.

I agree with the explanation for number (2) - maximum correct 28 questions, minimum correct 21 questions.

But I disagree with the explanation for (1). Is it true that whenever there an exam is split into two sections you would have an equal number of questions in each halves? Then again, if the examinee only answered one question correctly in the first half and and nine questions on the second half, he would not have passed the third section.

We are told that she passed 28-question second section, thus she answered at least 0.75*28 = 21 questions on the second section.

We are also told that she answered one more question correctly on the third section than she did on second section, thus she answered at least 21 + 1 = 22 questions on the third section.

Hope it's clear.

Hi shubhstiws,

The word "half" has a very specific meaning, mathematically-speaking. The prompt tells us one thing about the third section of the test - it consists of 30 questions. When Fact 1 refers to the 'second half' and the 'first half' of the third section, then that can only refer to the number of questions because there's no other reference point that it could refer to (there's no discussion of "points" or "time" or anything else). Thus, those descriptions refer to the last 15 questions in that section and the first 15 questions in that section, respectively.

As an aside, in your example you use the word 'half' incorrectly. The GMAT has 4 sections, not "two halves." While the Quant and Verbal sections both have a 75-minute time limit, the number of questions in each differs, so even if the Test was just those two sections, referring to them generally as 'the first half' and the 'the second half' would be incorrect. You would have to say that 'the first half of your TIME is spent on the Quant section and the second half of your TIME is spent on the Verbal section.'

GMAT assassins aren't born, they're made,
Rich

This criticism seems valid.
The prompt should make clear that -- for a test-taker to pass a section -- 75% of the QUESTIONS in that section must be answered correctly.

Given: A dental licensure exam requires a 75% minimum score in order to pass each section

Target question: Did Jennifer pass the 30-question third section?
75% of 30 = 22.5
So, in order to get at least 75% in the 3rd section, Jennifer must correctly answer 23 or more questions in the 3rd section.
REPHRASED target question: Did Jennifer correctly answer 23 or more questions in the 3rd section?

Statement 1: Jennifer recorded 8 more correct answers on the second half of the third section than she did on the first half of the third section.
Since there are 30 question in the third section, there are 15 questions in the 1st half and 15 questions in the 2nd half.
Let's examine ALL possible cases:
Case a: 0/15 correct in the 1st half and 8/15 correct in the 2nd half, for a total of 8/30. The answer to the REPHRASED target question is NO, Jennifer did NOT correctly answer 23 or more questions
Case b: 1/15 correct in the 1st half and 9/15 correct in the 2nd half, for a total of 10/30. The answer to the REPHRASED target question is NO, Jennifer did NOT correctly answer 23 or more questions
Case c: 2/15 correct in the 1st half and 10/15 correct in the 2nd half, for a total of 12/30. The answer to the REPHRASED target question is NO, Jennifer did NOT correctly answer 23 or more questions
Case d: 3/15 correct in the 1st half and 11/15 correct in the 2nd half, for a total of 14/30. The answer to the REPHRASED target question is NO, Jennifer did NOT correctly answer 23 or more questions
Case e: 4/15 correct in the 1st half and 12/15 correct in the 2nd half, for a total of 16/30. The answer to the REPHRASED target question is NO, Jennifer did NOT correctly answer 23 or more questions
Case f: 5/15 correct in the 1st half and 13/15 correct in the 2nd half, for a total of 18/30. The answer to the REPHRASED target question is NO, Jennifer did NOT correctly answer 23 or more questions
Case g: 6/15 correct in the 1st half and 14/15 correct in the 2nd half, for a total of 20/30. The answer to the REPHRASED target question is NO, Jennifer did NOT correctly answer 23 or more questions
Case h: 7/15 correct in the 1st half and 15/15 correct in the 2nd half, for a total of 22/30. The answer to the REPHRASED target question is NO, Jennifer did NOT correctly answer 23 or more questions
Case i: 8/15 correct in the 1st half and 16/15 correct in the 2nd half. STOP. She can't get 16/15 correct. So, we've exhausted all possible cases.
Since our answer to the REPHRASED target question is the SAME every time, we can be certain that Jennifer did NOT correctly answer 23 or more questions
Statement 1 is SUFFICIENT

Statement 2: Jennifer answered one more question correctly on the third section than she did on the 28-question second section, which she passed.
We have no idea how many questions she answered correctly on the second section.
Statement 2 is NOT SUFFICIENT

Answer: A

Cheers,
Brent

Bunuel,

How did you get "Thus she answered at least 21+1=22 questions correctly from "Jennifer answered one more question correctly on the third section than she did on the 28-question second section, which she passed"?

I thought the half meant half time. Like she solved x questions in first 30 mins and y questions in remaining 30 mins in an hour exam. Is it just me or they should be clear that by half they mean number of questions get split in a section.

Why is everybody assuming that both first and second had an equal number of questions (ie 15 each)? Where is this mentioned in the question? Isn't this assuming extra info which we are not supposed to do?
GMAT also has a first half and second half and both of them have unequal number of questions. Did nobody found this language confusing?

Hi,

I also marked E for the same reason.
Question stem mentions 75% score not 75% questions.

Statement 1: Jennifer recorded 8 more correct answers ON the second half.
The phrase in blue cannot serve to refer to time.
Generally, we do not use the preposition on to refer to time.
Incorrect: Jennifer recorded 8 more correct answers ON the last hour of the test.
Correct: Jennifer recorded 8 more correct answers DURING the last hour of the test.
To refer to time, Statement 1 might say something like the following:
Jennifer recorded 8 more correct answers DURING the second hour of the 2-hour test than she recorded DURING the first hour of the 2-hour test.

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