To be eligible for the Young Leaders’ Prize, one must be under the age

Anybody can explain why B is wrong?
Passage says “only those who demonstrate their community leadership and aptitude for problem-solving will be invited to interview”, so this is a necessary condition. If hasn’t done this, the person can’t go on next step and finally get the prize.

fiftyoneverbal

Can you explain why B, C and D aren’t correct?

D says the one most deserving the prize, but the passage says the three most deserving the prize, so I think D is incorrect. But I have no clue why B and C is wrong.

Hello expert,
Could you share some ideas about why B and C is wrong?
Passage says “only those who demonstrate their community leadership and aptitude for problem-solving will be invited to interview”, so this is a necessary condition. If hasn't done this, the person can’t go on next step and finally get the prize.

I will go one better, Mavisdu1017, and post a full analysis of the answer choices. I am going to approach this post a bit differently from my typical manner, in which I discuss the passage and then the answer choices. I think it may be more useful to trace the chain of logic through the answer choices themselves to gain a better understanding of the passage. That passage, for reference:


Do not lose sight of must be true, or assumptions will take over.


The passage notes the requirement that a candidate must not have... a grade-point average below 3.5 (my italics). We can appreciate from Quant that not below means greater than or equal to. A candidate can carry a 3.5 GPA and be eligible for the Young Leaders' Prize.


Yes, candidates are evaluated based on their perceived demonstration of community leadership and aptitude for problem-solving, but perceptions are not hard facts. We have no idea what this initial review process may entail, and cannot say with confidence that any eventual recipient of the prize has actually demonstrated the qualities in question.


Be careful here. Yes, the passage states that everyone who interviews for the prize will advance to the shortlist. But does that necessarily mean that only those who interview can make it to the shortlist? No. That is associative reasoning taking over. There might be candidates who are invited to interview but cannot make it, whose candidacy could look so promising that their names might make their way onto the shortlist anyway. Simply put, the passage does not tell us about this other potential group of candidates.


If the passage explicitly states that the three candidates who are deemed to be most deserving are given the prize, then we cannot whittle down three to the one. End of story.


This must be true, since we are told that the recipients will be selected exclusively from [the shortlist]. How those names may have appeared on the shortlist (answer choice (D)) is up for debate, but exclusively is an absolute condition.

Perhaps the question makes more sense now. I wish I knew the source. I do not typically praise questions from third parties, but this one is carefully considered and phrased.

- Andrew

AndrewN hi expert, much thanks for your response. But sorry I cannot well understand what you mean about B, could you mind to exemplify it?

Sure, Mavisdu1017. Say that I read through your posts and decide that they exhibit a high degree of curiosity and intelligence. Does my assessment mean that you are, in fact, a curious and intelligent individual? (Of course! you say.) That could be true, or it could just be that my assessment is inaccurate. The truth of the matter cannot be known by my assessment of your posts only. In a similar way, an initial review of candidates who demonstrate their community leadership and aptitude for problem-solving may or may not be accurate. We cannot deduce anything about the candidates themselves.

- Andrew

Thanks expert. I understand now and I really didn’t think that much...

I think there's a separate reason to rule out B. The question is playing a kind of shell game; it's trying to make the reader think there's a certain linear process in deciding the award. It's trying to make you think "someone needs certain qualifications (GPA, no criminal record, etc), then if the person has leadership and problem solving skills the person gets an interview, then people who get interviewed go on to the shortlist, then people from the shortlist are considered for the prize". But the one thing the question never tells us explicitly, and which does not need to be true, is whether *only* people who are interviewed are added to the shortlist. If some people who are not interviewed are also added to the shortlist, then it is possible someone who does not meet the requirements for an interview can still make the shortlist, and can still win the award. So it is possible someone without leadership or problem solving skills can make the shortlist (but not the interview) and win the award, and B does not need to be true.

This feels a lot more like an LSAT question than a GMAT question.

After the initial review, only those who demonstrate their community leadership........ interview.
All who are interviewed are shortlisted, meaning those who demonstrate their community leadership.... are shortlisted.

What about those who did not show community leadership and.....?
Are the excluded?
Some of them might be excluded, again some them are shortlisted directly. (We do not know)

So to be must be true, we have to think about the logical gap.

B says that "The recipient has demonstrated their community leadership and aptitude for problem-solving"
C says "The recipient interviewed for the prize"

IF "B" is true so is "C", But None of them need not to be true to hold the argument right. (They might be true but must not true)
Again all who are interviewed may not be from the group who have not demonstrated their community leadership and aptitude for problem-solving, some might be selected for other category. In same way all who are interviewed are shortlisted, but all who are shortlisted might or might not be from the group who are interviewed.

So, The recipient might be from the group who have not demonstrated their community leadership and aptitude for problem-solving. May be bcz at the initial review it is found that some students have received scholarship in the previous class/tests/ or have some other qualities for which they are directly shortlisted.

Thus we can say that B and C might be true, but must not be, making E the correct answer.

(Please forgive the way of expressing my words)