Hello, everyone. Just a heads up that a pattern among
official questions that follow this
which of the following format, in which the test-taker is meant to test the answers one by one,
a bottom-up strategy often saves a lot of time. That is, test (E) first, then (D), and so on. The pattern seems to be that the more difficult the question, the more often the answer is tucked away at the end. I believe the reason for this is that standardized test question-writers are jerks, anticipating that most test-takers will start with (A) and work down through the answer choices. (Note that I am not calling
Bunuel or any individual question-writer a jerk; I simply see no other reason for why the correct answer would not be evenly distributed among the five answer choices. And I spend a LOT of time analyzing standardized test questions.)
In this case, we can test (E), (2, 5), and create a false inequality in seconds:
(5) < 2(2)
5 < 4
There is no point in testing the other answers, since we already have what we are looking for. I would hate to tell you how much time I had lost prior to adopting this bottom-up strategy, but I am happy to let you know how much time those I have helped with the test have saved as a result of adopting such a method. (This one took me 11 seconds, and achieving certainty about my answer in that time is invaluable over a set of questions.)
Good luck with your studies.
- Andrew