GMAT Ninja Verbal Wednesdays, LIVE on YouTube -- ask your Qs here!

Thank You GMATNinja ! Looking forward to a fruitful discussion

Asides, All the very best to the "half" of the team

Regards

Great session as usual GMATNinja

I would like to thank you for highlighting the GMAT prep question, I try as much as possible to avoid practicing on them. I had already answered it prior to the session and checked that my answer was correct but skipped the explanation. I would appreciate as well highlighting this in the document being sent prior to the session.

Looking forward for the upcoming session

Thanks

Great idea, NDND! I'll continue to post the questions on the early side if I can, just in case anybody out there needs them a day or two ahead of the session... but I'll also make a point of highlighting the GMATPrep questions that are in the document, so that you can skip them if you prefer. Good call.

gmatexam439, we included the starfish question as today's QOTD: https://gmatclub.com/forum/qotd-starfis ... 53036.html. I'll have a solution up later today, and will address your concern there. I may or may not add it into the webinar, too -- it just depends on how many comparison-related questions come up before then.

See you all on Thursday!

OK, here are the questions for this week's webinar! THURSDAY, November 9, 7:30 a.m. Pacific. Think of this session as Comparisons, Part II: Questions I Mostly Really Hate.

As requested, the only GMATPrep question is clearly marked in the file. And DIII, I worked yours into the mix for this week.

See you all soon!

See you guys in 5 minutes

https://youtu.be/Dsa-RaX765o

souvik101990 GMATNinja

Thanks you folks for such a superb compilation and awesome explanations!
The Halley's Comet and India's harvest Qs were the best of lot. We did cover
former one in our Wednesday's chat here but the inverted SV structure took me for a ride.

For upcoming webinar:
Could you cover any time saving approach for evaluate Qs since most
of the articles ask YES/NO Q to each and every answer choice much like
negation technique in Assumption types.

Looking forward for more learning and active participation.

Thank you, adkikani! You're talking about "evaluate the argument" CR questions, correct? I'm not sure that I'll have a lot of magical time-saving approaches, but I'll definitely talk quite a bit about "efficiency" when we cover those.

If you have a particular official question in mind, feel free to post it here, and I'll add it to the mix if it's of an appropriate difficulty level. (Too easy isn't great, too hard might also be awkward for a CR technique lesson...)

GMATNinja



Yes.

Let me know if below Q can be included in your sessions:

Capuchin monkeys in Venezuela often rub a certain type of millepede into their fur. Secretions of these millipedes have been shown to contain two chemicals that are potent mosquito repellents, and mosquitoes carry parasites that debilitate the capuchins. The rubbing behavior is rare except during the rainy season, when mosquito populations are at their peak. Therefore monkeys probably rub millipedes into their fur only because doing so helps protect them against mosquitoes.

Which of the following would be most useful to determine in order to evaluate the argument.

(A) Whether the two chemicals provide any protection for millipedes against their own repellents.

(B) Whether the type of millipede used by the capuchin monkeys in Venezuela is found in other parts of the world.

(C) Whether animals other than capuchins rub insects of any kind into their fur

(D) Whether the only time millipedes are readily available to capuchins is during rainy season

(E) Whether secretions of any other insects accessible to capuchins contain chemicals that repel the mosquitoes

This Q is from GMAT prep, but I believe it is from retarded question bank as found here in 2008.

My query is : do we have to find YES/NO answer to each POE or can we eliminate few of the options if we are in time crunch.
Do share your insights!

Thank you GMATNinja for including the question in QOTD. Sorry for the delayed response because I was ill and was on bed rest for whole last week.

Regards

Hi GMATNinja,
Hats off to you for such awesome tutorials. These are real eye openers. May I request you to help us out with these two GMAT Prep strengthen questions in an upcoming session?

1.Political Advertisement: Mayor Delmont's critics complain about the jobs that were lost in the city under Delmont's leadership. Yet the fact is that not only were more jobs created than were eliminated, but the average pay for these new jobs has been higher than the average pay for jobs citywide every year since Delmont took office. So there can be no question that throughout Delmont's tenure the average paycheck in this city has been getting steadily bigger.

Which of the following, if true, most strengthens the argument in the advertisement?

(A) The average pay for jobs created in the city during the past three years was higher than the average pay for jobs created in the city earlier in Mayor Delmont's tenure.

(B) Average pay in the city was at a ten-year low when Mayor Delmont took office.

(C) Some of the jobs created in the city during Mayor Delmont's tenure have in the meantime been eliminated again.

(D) The average pay for jobs eliminated in the city during Mayor Delmont's tenure has been roughly equal every year to the average pay for jobs citywide.

(E) The average pay for jobs in the city is currently higher than it is for jobs in the suburbs surrounding the city.

2. Smithtown University’s fund-raisers succeeded in getting donations from 80 percent of the potential donors they contacted. This success rate, exceptionally high for university fund-raisers, does not indicate that they were doing a good job. On the contrary, since the people most likely to donate are those who have donated in the past, good fund-raisers constantly try less-likely prospects in an effort to expand the donor base. The high success rate shows insufficient canvassing effort.

Which of the following, if true, provides more support for the argument?

(A) Smithtown University’s fund-raisers were successful in their contacts with potential donors who had never given before about as frequently as were fund-raisers for other universities in their contacts with such people.
(B) This year the average size of the donations to Smithtown University from new donors when the university’s fund-raisers had contacted was larger than the average size of donations from donors who had given to the university before.
(C) This year most of the donations that came to Smithtown University from people who had previously donated to it were made without the university’s fund-raisers having made any contact with the donors.
(D) The majority of the donations that fund-raisers succeeded in getting for Smithtown University this year were from donors who had never given to the university before.
(E) More than half of the money raised by Smithtown University’s fund-raisers came from donors who had never previously donated to the university.

Regards and Kudos
Manish

And here are the examples that we'll use for today's webinar on strengthen, weaken, and assumption questions. See you all on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/user/gmatclub

If you have access to a printer, I strongly recommend printing these out before watching the webinar.

Hi GMATNinja ,

I am ready with the copy of the questions Just waiting for another couple of minutes for the live discussion. :D

Please make a live session video on assumption based questions on CR and how to use the negation techniques.

Sent from my vivo 1609 using GMAT Club Forum mobile app

Hi GMATNinja,

Question w.r.t. the below assumption question: I understood that A, B, C are not related to the argument. I also understand that D has an issue because of the time period mentioned in the option. But, during exam I might not be able to relate E's tools with the burnt bones of the animals. Logically this is a far fetched assumption. We need to assume too much in order to make E the correct choice. How do we then understand in the exam under pressure that E indeed is the right answer?

In Swartkans territory, archaeologists discovered charred bone fragments dating back 1 million years. Analysis of the fragments, which came from a variety of animals, showed that they had been heated to temperatures no higher than those produced in experimental campfires made from branches of white stinkwood, the most common tree around Swartkans.

Which of the following, if true, would, together with the information above, provide the best basis for the claim that the charred bone fragments are evidence of the use of fire by early hominids?

(A) The white stinkwood tree is used for building material by the present-day inhabitants of Swartkans.

(B) Forest fires can heat wood to a range of temperatures that occur in campfires.

(C) The bone fragments were fitted together by the archaeologists to form the complete skeletons of several animals.

(D) Apart from the Swartkans discovery, there is reliable evidence that early hominids used fire as many as 500 thousand years ago.

(E) The bone fragments were found in several distinct layers of limestone that contained primitive cutting tools known to have been used by early hominids.

Ah, good question. You actually answered part of it yourself! It's pretty clear that A, B, C, and D have serious problems, right? (And we'll do this one as a QOTD next week, so for anybody who's not sure about those "serious problems", we'll post a detailed explanation.)

And you're always looking for the "least-bad" answer on GMAT verbal. Notice the phrasing in the question: "which of the following... provides the best basis for the claim..." And best ≠ perfect.

I'd also argue that you don't have to make any huge assumptions to connect (E) to the passage and conclusion. We're trying to show that the charred bone fragments came from early hominid activity, so if the fragments were found alongside tools that were "known to have been used by early hominids", then it's more likely that the charred bone fragments were also from hominid activity, and not some other source (forest fires or whatever).

You don't really even need to assume that the campfires were used to cook dinner (mmm... dinner) and the tools were used to carve up dinner (mmm... dinner) -- though that's probably not a huge stretch, either. But all you really NEED to think about is the fact that the charred bones were found alongside other hominid artifacts -- so at the very least, there was hominid activity in the same time and place as the bone-charring. Even if you (understandably!) don't want to assume that the hominids were cutting meat with the tools and cooking it over a campfire, just the co-location of the bones and tools is enough to make (E) much better than any of the alternatives.

I hope this helps!

Thank you for the quick reply GMATNinja. This does clear up the confusion. I might have been thinking with a "stern" understanding. Thanks again sire !!

GMATNinja

Did I hear correctly that this was the first time you interacted with students for CR on such a
platform?? Amazing session with correct pacing and awesome insights. It is no surprise that such an
extremely difficult task could be accomplished by veteran as you with such an ease.

Could you and our Exec Producer take up next challenge of conducting such a session on RC (just covering reading strategies
and linkage of paragraphs like we did for sentences here in CR shall be useful)?

Would be grateful if you could oblige.