A low-pressure weather system is approaching Plainville; rainfall resu

Question

A low-pressure weather system is approaching Plainville; rainfall results from about 70 percent of such systems in the Plainville area. Moreover, the current season, spring, is the time of year in which thundershowers, which sometimes result from low-pressure systems, are most likely to occur in Plainville.

Knowing which one of the following, in addition to the information above, would be most useful for determining the probability that Plainville will have a thundershower soon?

(A) the percentage of thundershowers in Plainville that occur in the spring
(B) the percentage of spring rainfalls in Plainville that are thundershowers
(C) the percentage of thundershowers in Plainville that result from low-pressure systems
(D) whether low-pressure systems in other areas are associated with rainfall
(E) whether Plainville has more or fewer thundershowers each spring than do nearby towns

DmitryFarber · Accepted Answer

sssanskaar

C is working in the wrong direction. We're trying to go from what we know (low-pressure system) to what the question asks about (chance of thundershower). So we need to know how likely it is that when we have a low-pressure system, we will get a thundershower. We already know that we're likely to have rain, but we don't know how likely the rain is to turn into a thundershower. B gives us the probability we need.

C, meanwhile, would only be useful if we KNEW we had a thundershower and wanted to figure out the cause. Then we might wonder how often thundershowers are caused by low-pressure systems vs. something else.

As a comparison, imagine that someone is drinking too much wine, and I suggest that they will feel sick the next day. To assess whether I'm right, it would be helpful to know how often people who drink too much wine feel sick the next day. It would not help to know how often people feel sick have drunk too much wine. Maybe most sickness is caused by other things (disease, other alcoholic beverages, etc.), but that doesn't do anything to change whether the wine would make us sick. If it did, one could avoid illness by drinking only very rare drinks: "Only a very tiny percentage of sick people became sick from drinking this vintage Albanian wine, so surely it will not make me sick."

11MBA · Answer

The question asks what's the probability that a Plainville will have a thunder shower soon. You know that low-pressure weather system is approaching Plainville and rainfall results from about 70 percent of such systems in the Plainville area. You also know that it's spring time and thunderstorms are most likely to occur during spring. If you know the probability of thunderstorms during spring you and when a low front is moving towards it then the probability of thunder showers = .70*probability of thundershows during spring.

ChrisLele · Answer

From the argument we know the following:

1) 70% of low-pressure systems (LPS) result in rain.
2) Thunderstorms sometimes result from LPS.
3) Spring is the most common time for thunderstorms.

We need an answer that will best help us determine whether this LPS will result in a thunderstorm.

The information we don't have is what percent of time that it is raining is it a thunderstorm. This piece of information will help us determine how likely it is for a thunderstorm appear. After all, if it is LPS with rain, but when it rains there is only a 1% chance that it will thunderstorm, this is very different than if there is a 90% of a thunderstorm every time it rains.  (B) provides this information.

(A) wouldn't help us, because even if most thunderstorms occurred in Spring that wouldn't tell us how likely this system will bring a thunderstorm. Indeed all of the other seasons could not have any thunderstorms. If spring only has one thunderstorm per year (making it the season with the most thunderstorms) this is not going to tell us much.

TheNightKing · Answer

I marked the answer as C reason being "If I know the percentage of thunderstorms that result from low pressure weather system, that helps with finding the probability." Because the argument mentions thunderstorms sometimes results from low pressure systems and not always

sssanskaar · Answer

Can someone please explain why the answer is not C?

sssanskaar · Answer

Thanks  DmitryFarber  for explaining it in much simpler terms! It is now clear to me. I think I had missed one very important part that the rain and the thundershowers are not mutually exclusive sets. I had thought that these two are different things altogether. 
As always, I am now clear in my understanding after reading your wonderful explanation. A heartfelt thank you!

DmitryFarber · Answer

I'm glad to help! I can see how the interpretation you were using made this a tough one. If we read "thundershower" to mean some kind of rain shower, then "thundershowers" must be a subset of "rainfall." If we were looking for something else, such as earthquakes, then B would look very odd--why would some rainfall also be earthquakes?--but it would still be useful to know this information. That means B is a great clue--"Oh, thundershowers can be a kind of rainfall?"--that may prompt us to question our assumptions and look at the problem differently. C would still not work, even if we were talking about earthquakes, for the same reasons I cited earlier. We still wouldn't know how likely it would be to have an earthquake when low-pressure systems came around.

Saupayan · Answer

Hi Buddy,
Thanks for your explanation. I get why C is wrong, but I still don't get why B is right. (I picked B as my answer choice FWIW, but I wasn't fond of it. It just seemed best of the worst choices)
Here's what I think:
Question: What is the probability that Plainville will have a thundershower soon?
What are we told already?
 A low-pressure weather system is approaching Plainville; rainfall results from about 70 percent of such systems in the Plainville area  - great info. Now we just need to figure out what percentage of such rainfall (i.e. rainfall resulting from low-pressure weather system, NOT just ANY RAINFALL) results in thundershowers. It is quite possible that low-pressure rainfalls never result in thundershowers (or they always result in thundershowers). We just dont know.

Moreover, the current season, spring, is the time of year in which thundershowers, which sometimes result from low-pressure systems, are most likely to occur in Plainville  - OK good to know, but so what? This doesn't help us to answer the question. Spring is the time when thundershowers are likely. We need to know "given a low pressure system is approaching, how probable is it that it's going to result in a thundershower. Maybe the spring season alters that probability because it brings with it more low pressure systems, but that's irrelevant once we are there there already is a low pressure system. Moreover, there might be other types of rainfall in spring, not caused by low-pressure systems. So, we can ignore this statement.

So, just to recap, what do we need to find out?
what percentage of low-pressure system induced rainfall result in thundershowers

This isn't really what we are looking for. Sure it mentions a percentage of some rainfall, but not the kind we were looking for.
We need  P(thundershower soon) = P(low-pressure) x P(thundershower caused by low-pressure) 
We are given P(low-pressure) = 0.7, we aren't given P(thundershower caused by low-pressure)
Alternately, we can calculate it as follows:
P(thundershower soon) = P(rainfall in spring) x P(spring rainfall that is thundershower)
option B gives us the 2nd term of the equation, but not the first one.

Coun · Answer

We know
1. 70% of the time, a low preassure system results in rainfall over Plainville
2. We know that during the current season, Spring, Thundershowers which   Sometimes  Result from Low preassure systems, are   Most likely to occur in Plainville

Now we don't need to get stuck up in clarifying precisely what the data of 'sometimes' or 'most likely' is supposed to mean, so we can eliminate the options that are committed to resolve this ambiguity. Instead, we must take this information at face value and pick the option that bridges the two TOGETHER.

If we know, Rainfall from LP system is likely, and we know that thunderstorms are also likely but only sometimes from LP system then we simply need to see what percent of rainfalls end up as thunderstorms to conveniently relate the data and achieve a conclusion.

Saupayan · Answer

If this was a response to my last comment/question, I still don’t get it
My point was:
P(a) = P(a/b) * P(b)
Also,
P(a) = P(a/c) * P(c)

Were given, P(a/b) and P(c). We can’t find P(a) from that information

Posted from my mobile device

VerbalBot · Answer

Hello from the GMAT Club VerbalBot!

Thanks to another GMAT Club member, I have just discovered this valuable topic, yet it had no discussion for over a year. I am now bumping it up - doing my job. I think you may find it valuable (esp those replies with Kudos).

Want to see all other topics I dig out? Follow me (click follow button on profile). You will receive a summary of all topics I bump in your profile area as well as via email.

A low-pressure weather system is approaching Plainville; rainfall resu

Prep Toolkit

Top 5 GMAT Debrief Videos

615 to 715 in 15 Days (Ria's Strategies)

More than Quant/Verbal Abilities: Speed vs. Accuracy

745 with Only Self-Prep and GMAT Club

From 555 to 765: 210-point Improvement

Perfect 805 Score Debrief by Julia

My Rewards

GMAT Critical Reasoning (CR) Questions

A low-pressure weather system is approaching Plainville; rainfall resu

Prep Toolkit

615 to 715 in 15 Days (Ria's Strategies)

More than Quant/Verbal Abilities: Speed vs. Accuracy

745 with Only Self-Prep and GMAT Club

From 555 to 765: 210-point Improvement

Perfect 805 Score Debrief by Julia

My Rewards