To be considered for inclusion in the Barbizon Film Festival, a film m

Dear Mo2men,

I'm happy to respond.

First of all, there are so many stipulations in this question, this is one of the exceedingly few questions on which I might recommend taking a blind guess and moving on, in the interest of time. There are many moving parts to this question, and this complexity makes it confusing and time-consuming.

This set-up is similar to an idea in statistics known as Simpson's Paradox. The basic gist in this situation is

1) Within each category, drama and comedy, the acceptance rate for domestic films was the same as that for foreign films.
Thus, the acceptance rate in each group is the same. We know, though, that it still be a low acceptance rate in dramas and a higher acceptance rate in comedies.

2) ... the overall acceptance rate for domestic films was significantly higher than that for foreign films.
The overall rate is different from in-category rate (as in Simpson's paradox). This happens because a larger proportion of the domestic films were comedies, where the acceptance rate was much higher, and a larger proportion of the foreign films were drama, where the acceptance rate is smaller. Thus, a higher proportion of comedies would be accepted and a higher proportion of the dramas would be rejected.

For example, I just whipped up these numbers (fractions show "accepted" over "submitted"):

Notice that the number of submission for drama is higher overall.
I made the acceptance rate for dramas only 1%, and the acceptance rate for comedies 100%.
Many more of the domestic films are in comedy, with the big acceptance rate.
Many more the foreign films are in drama, with the tiny acceptance rate.
This does the trick.

Does this logic make sense?
Mike

"Hello David,

Upon a careful review of the question by our question writers, we agree with you: both B and E are viable responses and the question is confusing. We are in the process of making upgrades to the GMATPrep software and we will remove it from the new version.

To provide you with a bit more background: as you probably know, we conduct analyses for all questions that appear on the test, and the analysis for this question showed that it was performing as expected - with high ability candidates either selecting answer choice B to get it right or selecting answer choices other than E in getting the question wrong. Answer choice E was actually the least selected amongst all options. Based on the results of the analysis, it was included on the GMAT exam and, subsequently, in GMATPrep.

As a result of your query, we will remove it from GMATPrep when the new version launches. Thank you for raising this issue."

WOW, four years and they have not done so...

Film belongs to drama or comedy. Films can be subdivided into domestic and foreign.

Drama (Submissions) > Comedy(Submissions)
Drama (Acceptance Rate) < Comedy(Acceptance Rate)

This year:

Domestic films (Acceptance Rate) > Foreign films (Acceptance Rate) --> If foreign films had submitted more drama movies than domestic films, foreign films would have lower acceptance rate.

A. significantly fewer foreign films than domestic films were accepted - Incorrect - The passage provides information only about acceptance rate. So we do not have the exact numbers to infer this option.

B. a higher proportion of the foreign than of the domestic films submitted were submitted as dramas - Correct - More foreign drama films than domestic drama films were submitted. Hence foreign films had a lower acceptance rate than domestic films.

C. the rate of acceptance of foreign films submitted was the same for dramas as it was for comedies - Incorrect - Cannot be inferred. We only know that the category wise rate of acceptance was same for domestic and foreign films was same.

D. the majority of the domestic films submitted were submitted as comedies - Incorrect - This need not be true. Even if comedy domestic films submitted were very low and all were accepted, the acceptance rate for comedy films will be 100%.

E. the majority of the foreign films submitted were submitted as dramas - Incorrect - Majority were dramas. Minority were comedies. All comedies will be accepted. Overall acceptance rate can still be high.

Answer: B

This is one of the trickiest question. I got wrong in the exam though. I am trying to answer as per below.
This year collection.

Domestic Foreign

Drama Comedy Drama Comedy

Submission

100 100 200 200

Acceptance Rate

10 50 10 50

Total Acceptance Rate for Domestic Films : 60/100*100 = 60%
Total Acceptance Rate for Foreign Films : 60/200*100 = 30%

Hence Answer is B.

Reading the prompt, one can imply that the proportion of Comedy:Drama was higher for domestic than foreign films. Only B Properly addresses this error. D and E hit on the same topic, but are traps as they contain extreme language than you cannot infer "The Majority"

Thanks Mike for your help.

I will follow your advice in this kind of questions.

Hi Mike, can you help clear up the reasoning for eliminating D and E? This was one of 6 I got wrong and it's bugging the hell out of me!

As an aside, do you think the actual verbal is a notch tougher than the GMATPrep verbal?

Dear Cez005,

I'm happy to respond.

The prompt presents paradoxical conditions:
1) Drama always receives more submissions but has a lower acceptance rate than comedy.
2) This year, the overall acceptance rate for domestic films was significantly higher than that for foreign films.
3) Within each category, drama and comedy, however, the acceptance rate for domestic films was the same as that for foreign films.

Again, it helps to understand Simpson's Paradox to sort through this. Here's the funny thing about (D) and (E): one or the other of them has to be true in order to make the paradox work, but individually, neither one has to be true.

Look at my chart above:
For a counterexample for (D), multiply both fractions in the "drama" column by 5/5--or 10/10. (This requires that (E) be true.)
For a counterexample for (E), multiply both fractions in the "comedy" column by 10/10--or 20/20. (This requires that (D) be true.)

By forcing either one to be false, we force the other one to be true. That's very tricky: one of the two absolutely must be true, but neither one by itself has to be true!

This is a very very hard GMAT Prep question. I think this would be on par with a very very hard questions on the real GMAT. I think statistically, there's no difference in difficulty: it's just that real live test conditions produce all kinds of stress than don't exist when you are in your living room doing GMAT Prep. See:
Lower on the Real GMAT than on Practice Tests

Does all this make sense?
Mike

Experts please let me know if my reasoning is correct.

The last portion of the stimulus mentions that 'the overall acceptance rate for domestic films was significantly higher than that for foreign films' and that 'Within each category, drama and comedy, however, the acceptance rate for domestic films was the same as that for foreign films.'. If we imagine a balance then proportion of foreign films has to increase. There is only one option which mentions high proportion of foreign films - Option B. I know this is not a fool proof reasoning but can i rely on this in the interest of time?

I am certainly not an expert here, but I wouldn't rely on banking the fact that one aspect of your conclusion is mentioned in the answer as being a good way to reach the correct answer quickly. However, I do think that your "balance" idea is good here. You can view this problem as a weighted average problem if you would like, doing so might help you reach B.

Is this an official OG question?

In this type of questions, all one has to mainly do is, coherently put together the pieces of information in one place

Three pieces of information given:

1. Drama gets more submissions but has lower acceptance rate
2. Overall acceptance rate for domestic films is significantly higher than that for foreign films
3. Within each category the acceptance rate for domestic and foreign films is the same

The best way to proceed is to draw a matrix and try to accommodate values consistent with all of the info. It is ok even if you get decimals as the math is only important.

See which of the choices can be falsified. What cannot be quickly falsified is best left alone for the moment . Proceed to the other choices. You will get to the right choice or to two choices in the worst case, the latter needing a change in the values.

Dear mikemcgarry

Thanks for your help and support. It turns out that this question is really tough question. However, GMAC admitted that both answer choices B & E are correct answers. This was proved by David from Veritas and he published his analysis along with GMAC's reply to him and hence will be removed from the new update of the GMAT Prep software.


I hope the above could help others in this question.

D and E are out; this is absolutely true.
A cannot be deducted from the passage b/c of "significantly" => A is also out.
C is wrong.
B can be concluded even though the passage does not mention the acceptance rate of foreign dramas and of domestic drama.

So this problem is weird — because both B and E must be correct.

__


B can be proved by just a couple of observations:

• The overall acceptance rate is a WEIGHTED AVERAGE of the acceptance rates for the individual categories.

• Like other weighted averages, this one will depend on the proportions/fractions/percentages of films in each of the two categories.
HIGHER % of films in DRAMA = LOWER weighted-average acceptance rate.

• The weighted average is lower for foreign films, so, accordingly, a higher % of foreign films must have been accepted into the drama category. Choice B is thus proved.

__


This is where it gets innnnnnnteresting.

Once we've proved the result above... we can now go on to show that choice E must be true, too!

Let's imagine, hypothetically, that choice E is FALSE. I.e., 50% or fewer of the foreign films were dramas.

Remember (choice B) that an even LOWER percentage of domestic films are dramas.
Therefore, in this hypothetical case...
... ≤ 50% of foreign films are dramas;
... < 50% of domestic films are dramas.
Together, that's definitely a MINORITY of ALL the films submitted.
This is a problem, because we're told that the drama category ALWAYS receives more submissions than does the comedy category.
"Always" is not a figure of speech, nor is it inexact — it means exactly what it says. So, this hypothetical is impossible, because it violates the "ALWAYS" statement.

Since it's impossible for 50% or fewer of the foreign films to be dramas, then, it is thus PROVED that MORE than 50% of the foreign films are dramas.
That's choice E.

__


Oh well ahah. I just hope this problem wasn't ever a non-experimental problem on the real exam.

(There are only 2 other GMAC quant problems I've ever seen for which the OA was actually incorrect — so, you shouldn't let this one shake your confidence in the validity of the test overall.)

Let

AFD: Accepted Foreign Drama
AFC: Accepted Foreign Comedy
ADD: Accepted Domestic Drama
ADC: Accepted Domestic Comedy
FC: Foreign Comedy
FD: Foreign Drama
DC: Domestic Comedy
DD: Domestic Drama

What the argument says:
\(\frac{AFD}{(FC+FD)}\)=\(\frac{ADD}{(DC+DD)}\)

and

\(\frac{AFC}{(FC+FD)}\)=\(\frac{ADC}{(DC+DD)}\)

and

\(\frac{(ADD+ADC)}{(DC+DD)}\)>\(\frac{(AFD+AFC)}{(FD+FC)}\)

What B says:

B. a higher proportion of the foreign than of the domestic films submitted were submitted as dramas

which can be translated to :

\(\frac{FD}{(FC+FD)}\)>\(\frac{DD}{(DC+DD)}\)


How can we infer that \(\frac{FD}{(FC+FD)}\)>\(\frac{DD}{(DC+DD)}\) from the argument given?

Any helpful and constructive explanation is welcome

Insane problem, I guessed B but it was bugging the hell out of me so I played around with drawing matrix for the choices... B and E both seem correct and playing with then numbers didn't dispel this notion...

Premise:
1. Total = Drama + Comedy
2. Drama #submissions > Comedy #submissions
3. Drama %accepted < Comedy %accepted
4. Drama & Comedy are subdivided into Foreign and Domestic
5. Total %accepted Domestic > %accepted Foreign
6. Individually, Drama & Comedy %accepted Domestic = %accepted Foreign

Using the info, we can organize (see attachment for details - above colors are shown and red = wrong inferences):



chetan2u mikemcgarry or other experts, please give your stamp of approval, I don't want to mislead anyone...