The principal of a public elementary school complained bitterly when

obvious choice B is much better but in my view 2 reasons that choice C is not the one -

argument - There's no graffiti in the hallways; no one is selling drugs; and math and reading scores have been going up for every grade except the fifth.
choice C - Students at the school in every grade except the fifth can read and do math well above their grade level.

reason 1- read the highlighted portion, in my view it cannot be assumed better scores for 'above their grade level'.
reason 2 - we know that the school is in the list due to 5th grade. of everything in the list by principal, good scores in all grade is just not enough.

This question showed up in one of Kaplan's free question of the day. Here is their explanation:

Answer B - The principal's statement to the reporters makes it clear that he feels his school was listed as academically troubled because of its low fifth-grade test scores. Otherwise, why would he take such pains to point out that achievement scores for all the other grades have been going up, and other schools in the city have lower fifth-grade scores?

So the answer is (B). Whether or not the school had ever made the list before is irrelevant, since the principal's point is that the school does not deserve to be listed now. So (A) is incorrect. As for (C), the principal may very well believe that students outside of the fifth grade are exceeding expectations for their grade level; but he may not. He says only that their reading and math scores are going up. Since the principal doesn't say where the scores used to be, we can't reasonably infer that he believes his students are reading and calculating "well above their grade level." Nor can we reasonably infer from the principal's statement about the lack of drugs in his school that the principal thinks drug problems at other elementary schools are much worse than at his school, as in (D). Finally, (E) is incorrect because the principal doesn't imply a comparison between urban and suburban schools.

"the principal most likely believes which one of the following?" such inference question in Gmat is rarely written in this way. It sounds like a RC question.
Using POE method, all options except B are out of scope.
D is wrong b/c drug problems are not discussed. "selling drugs" yield no much information about drug problems.

But how can we infer that " The school in question "made" the list themselves. Where is it mentioned in the argument above ? I rejected choice B solely on this basis. Can somebody explain this to me ?

Bunuel
will it be too much to ask if I request you to post the official solution if you have it? Thanks

Hi StandardizedNerd,

The 'crux' of this Inference question is that the School was placed on a list of 50 most ACADEMICALLY-troubled in the STATE. The Principal then goes on to name a number of "positives" of his School that are not, strictly-speaking, about academics (re: no graffiti, no drugs). The one academic piece of data is that reading and math scores have been 'going up' in every grade EXCEPT for fifth; as an aside, this does not necessarily mean that these higher reading and math scores are "good", since we don't have a basis for comparison (re: those scores might actually still be really bad - and by comparison, the scores for the fifth grade are even worse). The principal then tells us MORE about the fifth grade scores (they're not even the lowest in the CITY - which is interesting in that it completely ignores the larger comparison to the STATE). He's clearly really focused on the fifth grade scores, so it's likely that any inference here will probably involve those scores. There's only one answer that does that (and connects the inference back to the crux of the question).

Final Answer:

GMAT assassins aren't born, they're made,
Rich

Contact Rich at: Rich.C@empowergmat.com

This is not an official question. Too much of a stretch. I would have marked (D) here if I had to so I certainly can't tell you why (B) is the official answer.

Ohk! FWIW, another forum lists it as a GMAT paper tests question. So was probably written by the ETS or maybe not.

I will be very surprised if it turns out to be an official question. We are to infer about the principal's beliefs about the beliefs of the list makers (what they think academically-troubled means). Too much of a stretch.
All I can say is what the factors are that the principal believes play a role in making a school 'academically-troubled' - graffiti, drugs, scores and he thinks his school did better than 50 other schools on those parameters.

Well done! This indeed isn't there in 9 GMAT paper tests. According to you, what are the trappings of an apocryphal question such as this?

Mods, Bunuel: Can u pls confirm and remove the tag? Thank you

Done. Thank you.

It's might be a Kaplan question, as per this post.

That's an interesting question. Thankfully, the test taker doesn't need to worry about it, but the test maker does!
Official questions with debatable answers have been extremely rare. Normally, the logic of the correct option is undeniable (even if it is not apparent in the beginning) and the other 4 options are definitely worse. The reason we are unable to correctly solve the question will usually be our own oversight or hurry. Given enough time and enough attention, the answer to an official question would be absolutely non-debatable for most people. Also, with experience, one starts relating to the logic used in official questions. The logic might be convoluted but will never be far fetched.

If we are forced to weigh the pros and cons of two options even after getting the full explanation of the reasoning, it is usually not an official question.
The framing of official questions involves not only a lot of money, time and highly experienced effort, but also a lot of 'experimentation.' When a new question is put as an experimental one, if most people above a certain score get it right, the question is dependable. If, on the question, the performance of people with similar aptitudes shows no definite pattern, then the question is likely to have low predictability. So even if a less than optimum question does sneak in, the test maker can weed it out at the 'experimental' stage. A CR question of 700 level must be answered correctly by almost everyone who is at 750 level. If half the people who got 750 got it wrong and marked another option, we know the logic of the question is off or it has certain regional or other biases.

KarishmaB, If you don't mind, could u share the reasoning behind choosing D as the right answer? I ruled this option out because it felt like causation. Thanks for all your comments on various GMAT questions. Its super helpful to understand the thinking needed to approach questions irrespective of your answer choices.

On reading the question again, I noticed this "a list of the fifty most academically troubled in the state" and this "Everyone on the staff here thinks it's very unfair, especially when you consider that this school didn't even have the lowest fifth-grade achievement scores in the city". Btw, I got the wrong option choice as well. I misread and went for C

[quote="Yes2GMAT"]

We need to pick the option which tells us what the principal believes - not what we think or we believe. So put yourself in the principal's shoes.

The parameters by which the principal is measuring academic trouble - no graffiti, no drugs, higher scores mostly. He further adds that even our fifth grade (which is likely the worst in the school compared with other grades) isn't the worst in the city.

Then can I say that the principal believes that his school made the list primarily because of its low fifth-grade achievement scores?
No, he says that their fifth grade isn't the worst in the city i.e. it is better than other schools. Why would he believe that they were put here because of that. He says it is unfair to put them in the list because on all above mentioned parameters they are better than other schools.
and hence I would have chosen (D). He believes that drug problems at other elementary schools in the state are much worse than those of the school in question.

But we have NO idea of what he thinks why were they put in the list.

He believes that drug problems at other elementary schools in the state are much worse than those of the school in question.
Why will he assume anything about other elemetary schools mentioned in the list?