Researchers collected and studied emails sent by staff at three campus

anikpait17

Campus 3 gets a higher percentage of mails in each category. So whatever be the number of mails in each category less or more relative to each other, campus 3 would get more mails than campus 4.

What you have written is the exact reason why statement 1 is No. since campus 1 as compared to campus 2 has more % in two categories and less % in third category. Since we don’t know the exact number we cannot say yes.

 
­You must look at the percentages and make a logical conclusion for this one.

For Emails sent FROM CAMPUS 1 to Campus 3 (13%) and Campus 4 (6.5%), we can conclude that more emails were sent from Campus 1 to Campus 3 than from Campus 1 to Campus 4. The actual number of emails will depend on the total emails sent from Campus 1 but this does not change the fact that more emails were sent to Campus 3.

For Emails sent FROM CAMPUS 2 to Campus 3 (7%) and Campus 4 (2.3%), we can conclude that more emails were sent from Campus 2 to Campus 3 than from Campus 2 to Campus 4. The actual number of emails will depend on the total emails sent from Campus 2 but this does not change the fact that more emails were sent to Campus 3.

For Emails sent FROM CAMPUS 3 to Campus 3 (20%) and Campus 4 (4%), we can conclude that more emails were sent from Campus 3 to Campus 3 than from Campus 3 to Campus 4. The actual number of emails will depend on the total emails sent from Campus 3 but this does not change the fact that more emails were sent to Campus 3.

I marked NO for this statement as it isnt mentioned in the question anywhere that only emails form these 3 campuses are recieved by campus 5, what if campus 4/ external were to send mails to campus5. In that case we do not know how much percent of the whole recieved is campus 2 mails. Am i mising something?
TIA

 
­Hi columb2025,
Thank you for bringing up your concern regarding the interpretation of the data about emails sent to Campus 5. Let’s clarify this together!
 

Observe that the study mentioned here focuses exclusively on emails sent by staff at three specific campuses of an Australian university. This implies that the researchers only looked at emails originating from Campus 1, Campus 2, and Campus 3. Other sources, like Campus 4 or external sources, were not included in this particular study.

Therefore, when the table shows that 0% of emails from Campus 1 and Campus 3, and 2.3% of emails from Campus 2 were sent to Campus 5, it means just that – out of all the emails received by Campus 5, none from campus 1 and campus 3 and ALL were sent from Campus 2 in this study. Since the study does not include data from any sources other than these three campuses, this percentage is accurate and complete within the scope of the data collected.

 
Let me know if this helps address your doubt.  If you have any follow-up questions, do not hesitate to ask. 
Happy Learning!
Regards­

Hi!

I initially solved this question correctly but right before submitting it I noticed that the stem says that the table was made from a sample of emails, whereas the questions are about the emails in general. Also, the question does not include any of those typical statements such as "Assume the sample is representative of the population".

Therefore, I decided that it was a trick question and that no statement is inferable, because the sample might not be representative of all emails. I guess I was too extreme on this assumption...

I would normally make no such reasoning, but I tried this question shortly after getting the following problem wrong https://gmatclub.com/forum/how-many-people-in-town-x-read-neither-the-world-newspaper-nor-the-glo-305934.html (in this problem, I thought about the possibility of a third newspaper but discarded it because I thought I was going too far, thus getting it wrong)

I think my mind was caught up on the idea that all of "hard" DI questions are going to have some sort of "gotcha". Once in a while a feel this way, and I dont know if I should just solve the problem straight forward or if there is some sort of trick. Do you have any tips on how to approach this issue? KarishmaB GMATNinja GMATCoachBen chetan2u

I would appreciate some guidance! Thank you!

I have confusion regarding the scope of the data. [b]chetan2u KarishmaB MartyMurray @DmitryFarber[/b]
The table contains only sampled emails, so we don’t have complete visibility into which campuses are sending emails. Apart from C1, C2, and C3, we don’t know the distribution of emails from other campuses.

for Q3, what if there were 10 other campuses sending mails to campus 5 ? The table contains only sampled emails.

for Q2, what if there were 10 other campuses sending mails to C3 and C4 and there the percentages were higher for C4 rather than C3 ? The table contains only sampled emails.

The scope of the study is defined.
"Researchers collected and studied emails sent by staff at three campuses of an Australian university." Our study includes mails sent my campuses 1, 2 and 3 only. Any mails sent by any other campus is not a part of our study. It is not a part of our depicted numbers.
Questions ask about "... more of the emails..." so they are asking about only those emails that we are considering i.e. emails sent by campuses 1, 2 and 3 only.

I think this kind of confusion has really no value, I do not see what GMAC is trying to get from this kind of question. In real business world, we would just ask more specified question to avoid any confusion.

Hi karishma b

Can you please explain why is no the correct answer for first question?

Were more of the emails sent to Campus 1 than to Campus 2?

Campus 1 got 37.4% of campus 1 mails, 31.9% of campus 2 mails and 48% of campus 3 mails.
Campus 2 got 39% of campus 1 mails, 44.9% of campus 2 mails and 24% of campus 3 mails.

We don't know how many mails each of campus 1, 2 and 3 had sent out.
If campus 1 and 2 sent out about 100 mail each while campus 3 sent out 100,000 mails, then campus 1 got more mails. (because it got much more of campus 3 mails)
If campus 1 and 3 sent out 100 mails each but campus 2 sent out 100,000 mails, then campus 2 got more mails. (because it got much more of campus 2 mails)
So we can't say who got more mails.

Select No