A literature department at a small university in an English-speaking

Question

A literature department at a small university in an English-speaking country is organizing a two-day festival in which it will highlight the works of ten writers who have been the subjects of recent scholarly work by the faculty. Five writers will be featured each day. To reflect the department's strengths, the majority of writers scheduled for one of the days will be writers whose primary writing language is not English. On the other day of the festival, at least four of the writers will be women. Neither day should have more than two writers from the same country. Departmental members have already agreed on a schedule for eight of the writers. That schedule showing names, along with each writer's primary writing language and country of origin, is shown.

Day 1   
   Achebe (male, English, Nigeria) 
 Weil (female, French, France) 
 Gavalda (female, French, France) 
 Barret Browning (female, English, UK)

Day 2   
   Rowling (female, English, UK) 
 Austen (female, English, UK) 
 Ocantos (male, Spanish, Argentina) 
 Lu Xun (male, Chinese, China)

Select a writer who could be added to the schedule for either day. Then select a writer who could be added to the schedule for neither day. Make only two selections, one in each column.

AnishPassi · Accepted Answer

1.  Five writers will be featured each day. 
2.  To reflect the department's strengths,  the majority  of writers scheduled for one of the days will be writers whose primary writing language is not English. 
So, on one day, the primary writing language of at least 3 writers will be non-English.

3.  On the other day of the festival, at least four of the writers will be women.

When I scanned the tables for of the two days, I noticed Day 1's table has 3 females and 1 male. Day 2 has 2 females and 2 males. So, the day with at least four women writers would have to be Day 1. And the person who needs to be added to Day 1 would have to be female.

Thus, the other day - Day 2 - would have at least 3 non-English writers. Currently, in the table there are 2 non-English writers. So, the last one to be added would also need to be non-English.

Either day 
The person would need to be female and non-English.

That brings us to

Murasaki (female, Japanese, Japan)
and
Colette (female, French, France)

Now we'll need the following piece of info:

Point 4.  Neither day should have more than two writers from the same country.

The French lady (Colette) won't work for Day 1. Day 1 already has two writers from France.

So,  Either: Murasaki (female, Japanese, Japan)

Neither day 
Neither day means that the person should not eligible for Day 1  and  not eligible for Day 2. Any person who is male  and  writes in English will not work for either day. If I don't find a person who is both male and an English writer, then I'll consider point 4 about more than two writers from the same country.

Longfellow (male, English, USA) is male and writes primarily in English. Anyway he will not work for either day. I don't need to consider point 4.

Neither: Longfellow (male, English, USA)

jabhatta2 · Answer

Hi - How long to solve this problem ?

Can this really be solved within 3 - 4 mins ...Took me 3 mins just to get a grasp of the entire picture ...

Thoughts ?

Sajjad1994 · Answer

Official Explanation

Since Day 2 already has two male writers on the schedule, it cannot be the day in which four of the writers are women. Thus, Day 1 is the day in which at least four of the writers are women. A male writer, Achebe, is already scheduled for Day 1 so the fifth writer must be a woman. The writers who match this criterion are LeGuin, Murasaki, and Colette. Of the writers already scheduled for Day 1, two are from France, so the fifth writer cannot also be from France. This disqualifies Colette from consideration.

Thus, the writers who can be added to the schedule for Day 1 are LeGuin and Murasaki.

Day 2 is the day in which the majority of the writers must have primary writing languages that are not English. Two of the writers on Day 2 write primarily in English, so the fifth writer must not write primarily in English. The writers who match this criterion are Murasaki, Colette, Vargas Llosa, and Zola. Two writers scheduled for Day 2 are from the UK, so no additional writers can be from the UK. However, Murasaki, Colette, Vargas Llosa, and Zola are all from countries other than the UK.

Thus, the writers who can be added to the schedule for Day 2 are Murasaki, Colette, Vargas Llosa, and Zola.

The only writer who is eligible to be added to the schedule for Day 1 and is also eligible to be chosen for Day 2 is Murasaki.

The correct answer is Murasaki.

The only writer who is not eligible to be added to the schedule for Day 1 and is also not eligible to be added to the schedule for Day 2 is Longfellow.

The correct answer is Longfellow.

abhimahna · Answer

Since you agree on the Neither Part, I am not gonna explain that.

To explain the Either Part, lets work from options given.

Since, we need a day with at least 4 women and we have each of the days with 5 writers only, we can conclude that we need to have one women for case 1. So, for either case, IT has to be a women.

We are left with

LeGuin (female, English, USA)

Murasaki (female, Japanese, Japan)

Colette (female, French, France)

Now, We are given that if one day has maximum women, the other day should not have English as the majority. So, we can have maximum count for English as 2 only.

Now, we know that Day 1 has the maximum Women implying day 2 should not have more than 2 English writers. We already have 2 English writers, so We are left with

Murasaki (female, Japanese, Japan)

Colette (female, French, France)

Now, we cannot have more than 2 writers from same country. In order to make it valid for Either case, Colette will be out as we already have 2 writers from France on day 1.

Hence, we are left with Murasaki (female, Japanese, Japan). Hence, the answer.

BLTN · Answer

Dear jabhatta2 good point

In general, you have to tackle one of the 4 two-part analysis questions. The logic question is arduous; thus, consider to skip.

PerfectScores · Answer

A quick way to solve this problem:

The most penalized group is (male and English speaking) - The only person is LongFellow
The most welcomed group is (female and other countries) - The only person is Murasaki (There is French too but it is already in the group).

Either day: Murasaki (female, Japanese, Japan)
Neither Day: Longfellow (male, English, USA)

ShreeyaV · Answer

My understanding for neither is the writer cannot be male and a 3rd writer with same language & country aka " Neither day should have more than  two  writers from the  same country  ". Keeping this in mind, both Longfellow and Zola are equal contendors.
Longfellow cannot be as his language is English (day 1) with different country and male (day 2).
Zola cannot be as he is French (day 1) and male (day 2).
Both should equally qualify for Neither days strictly speaking.

So why is Longfellow that final answer? Is it solely because of English? What about the criteria of not more than 2 from the same country?

ronyweasley99 · Answer

I believe that the final answer is  Longfellow  because comparing  Zola  and  Longfellow  we have the following situations:

1. Zola is M and French. In Day 1, we have a majority of France, which is not accepted.
2. On day 2, Zola will provide the Male majority, which is not accepted.

BUT

On day 1, Women are the Majority, so it is not more of a condition for day 2. So, adding Zola on day 2, will not violate one of the conditions. For this reason, Zola can be added on day 2 with no problem.

For this reason, only  Longfellow  can't be added either day.

Well, this is my point of view. Hope this clarifies and help!

PocusFocus · Answer

it took me 9 min to answer correctly, at the beginning I tried to do it mentally, but finally I decided to use pen and paper.
But in the exam I would use intuition, is like being a male- English speaker of a Cuntry already mentioned is penalized.

A literature department at a small university in an English-speaking

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Either day	Neither Day
		LeGuin (female, English, USA)
		Longfellow (male, English, USA)
		Murasaki (female, Japanese, Japan)
		Colette (female, French, France)
		Vargas Llosa (male, Spanish, Peru)
		Zola (male, French, France)

GMAT Two-part Analysis (TPA) Questions

A literature department at a small university in an English-speaking

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My Rewards