V37-09

Question

A university library is considering transitioning a portion of their books from physical textbooks to digital versions accessible through an online portal. The library's management expects that, even with the convenience and accessibility of digital textbooks, the overall number of textbooks accessed by students will remain similar to current levels.
 
Assuming the library management's expectation is accurate, which of the following outcomes of the transition to digital textbooks is most likely?

A. Students will primarily use digital textbooks for courses where extensive reading is required.
B. The shift to digital textbooks will not result in a significant change in the frequency of textbook access.
C. If a large proportion of students access digital textbooks regularly, the use of physical textbooks in the library will substantially decrease.
D. Digital textbook usage will not increase if most students continue to use physical books.
E. The overall engagement of students with library resources will increase if the digital textbooks are integrated with interactive learning tools.

Bunuel · Answer

Official Solution:

A university library is considering transitioning a portion of their books from physical textbooks to digital versions accessible through an online portal. The library's management expects that, even with the convenience and accessibility of digital textbooks, the overall number of textbooks accessed by students will remain similar to current levels.
 
Assuming the library management's expectation is accurate, which of the following outcomes of the transition to digital textbooks is most likely?

A. Students will primarily use digital textbooks for courses where extensive reading is required.
B. The shift to digital textbooks will not result in a significant change in the frequency of textbook access.
C. If a large proportion of students access digital textbooks regularly, the use of physical textbooks in the library will substantially decrease.
D. Digital textbook usage will not increase if most students continue to use physical books.
E. The overall engagement of students with library resources will increase if the digital textbooks are integrated with interactive learning tools.

B) The shift to digital textbooks will not result in a significant change in the frequency of textbook access.
 
The library management's expectation is that the overall number of textbooks accessed will remain similar despite the transition to digital formats. If there is no significant change in students' textbook usage frequency, it would actually explain why the total number of textbooks accessed remains constant (in other words, the media (digital vs. print) were not an influencing factor).
 
The other options, while relevant, do not directly correspond with the management's expectation as closely as choice (B):
 
A) Students will primarily use digital textbooks for courses where extensive reading is required.
 
There is really no indication or reason for us to conclude this. We know nothing about preferences. 
 
C) If a large proportion of students access digital textbooks regularly, the use of physical textbooks in the library will substantially decrease.
 
This option may look attractive at first, but it has a few issues:

1. First of all, it is going outside of scope, talking about an increase. None of the elements in the passage talk about growth, increase, or trends, so this should immediately raise a flag in your "scope" alarm, but perhaps not enough to rule it out. 
 2. Notice the subtle switch from "books" to "students" - did you catch it? The question choice switches units from textbooks to students. We don't know how many books students check out today. Maybe each checks out 1 or maybe each checks out 20 at a time. If more students access more digital books, this does not mean fewer physical books are used. E.g. 95% of students uses a digital book but 19 out of 20 books are still physical. Possible, though an extreme scenario. 
 3. The other problem with this choice is that it is incomplete by itself and requires additional assumptions. For example, we do not know how many students will access digital vs. physical books, and we do not know if they are mutually exclusive. What if some books cannot be digitized and will be super popular or used? We just don't know - we only know that the library staff expects book usage to be the same. Talking about trends is taking the given information too far. 
 
D) Digital textbook usage will not increase if most students continue to use physical books.
 
This could also seem logical as a choice but consider the issues with this choice: 
 1. We do not know how many people use digital textbooks today. Likely very few or zero, so even if a few more people use digital textbooks, the increase could be significant 
 2. This requires additional assumptions about books, current usage, future usage, types of books digitized, etc. 
 The option is just not clean enough to be the correct answer. 
 
E) The overall engagement of students with library resources will increase if the digital textbooks are integrated with interactive learning tools.
 
• This suggests a potential increase in engagement but does not specifically support the expectation that the total number of textbooks accessed will not change.

Answer: B

singhrohit9525 · Answer

C. If a large proportion of students access digital textbooks regularly, the use of physical textbooks in the library will substantially decrease.

This option clearly states that a large proportion 
Now as i can comphrend Proportion means = Students who access Digital + Students who access Physical/Total no of student in college

If Students whii accessd books in physical form decrease and students who access digital increase still the proportion remains same, but it will decrease the physical book reading and use of physical textbooks in the library.

mollyweasley · Answer

The reason I discarded B was because of the "frequency of textbook usage". Number of textbooks can stay the same, but there is nothing to indicate how many times I as a student would access my digital / physical textbook. Please explain!

bb · Answer

Thank you. I think it is a good point that usage and checking them out in the library may not be the same concepts when it comes to digital. I will update the answer choice to state "frequency of textbook access" instead of "usage"

trinhthanhha · Answer

Number of textbooks can stay the same but we don't know the frequency of textbooks accessed. please explain.
For C, Number of textbooks = digital textbooks + physical text book. if # digital text book accessed increases then #physical text book accessed must decrease. Why C is not the right one?

AdjustedEbitdad · Answer

I understand that B follows directly and can be termed as the "most likely" occurrence.

However, shouldn't C also be inferrable? It's a logical, and standard outcome that will happen given the scenario (I can't see a reason it won't). In fact, I thought of that inference before reading the answer choices.

Granted it took some implication and analysis, but as far as I understand such a level of analysis can be done on Inference questions.

Do we have to stick to what's written or inferences like C, that can happen given the scenario is also good?  bb

bb · Answer

Hi. Good question. I have updated the explanation to hopefully provide test takers with better tools to tell why C is not the best/correct answer.

C) may look attractive at first, but it has a few issues. Here is how you can tell if an answer is incorrect and why in a similar question on the GMAT:

Does it stay within scope?  This question is going outside of "expected" scope, talking about increase and growth. None of the elements in the passage talk about growth, increase, or trends, so this should immediately raise a flag in your "scope" alarm, but perhaps not enough to rule it out completely. 
  Watch out for "crutch" answers  - those that look at just one scenario (that's a common mistake on the GMAT), as well as for answers that go from a trend to static or static to trend as you will see the logic my break. Also stay away from complex things as it is easier to hide flaws in complex answers. 
 
  Is this answer choice complete on its own or does it require additional assumptions?  The other problem with this choice is that it is incomplete by itself and requires additional assumptions. For example, we do not know how many students will access digital vs. physical books, and we do not know if they are mutually exclusive. What if some books cannot be digitized and will be super popular or used? We just don't know - we only know that the library staff expects book usage to be the same. Talking about trends is taking the given information too far.  
  Does the answer choice contradict the passage?  We are told that the library is planning to transition to the digital copies. Would this mean that the library will have no physical copies left? (we do not know actually about this), and then the usage would be zero of the physical textbooks (technically true that it decreases to zero but it would technically be the case in all scenarios even without significant usage, which technically in a twisted way makes this statement true, so I may need to do some homework and tweak the passage).

P.S. Thank you for bringing it up. This made me think of a few things, so I may tweak the passage to talk about the transition or maybe tweak C to make it more clear cut and consider some of the situations that were not considered in the past. I have added 2 weeks of the GMAT Club tests to your account for your help and great username by the way!

yashg25 · Answer

I don’t quite agree with the solution. The study habits and frequency of text book use should be irrelevant to the discussion of overall number of text books. Clearly if there is lesser frequency of use, still the number of books will be the same because once a book is sold its sold. 3rd option and 4th option both objectively make more sense.

bb · Answer

Hi. What do you mean by sold? I expect that as this is a university library (rather than a bookstore), the library would not be selling any of the books but rather letting people check out/borrow textbooks. Do you mean something else?

simooo123 · Answer

I did not quite understand the question and I don’t quite agree with the solution. I think B is also out of scope. study habits are completely pout of scope

bb · Answer

Hm... I think you are on to something. Maybe habits is too broad of a words as it can mean other others though here it is scoped within the digital textbook bubble. I can probably remove that portion completely and just leave frequency of book access.

I have provided you with 2 weeks of GMAT Club tests for helping improve this question 
P.S. (this is the third and likely last edit of this question; if there are any additional ones, I will decommission it).

chaitanyab109 · Answer

I like the solution - it’s helpful.

ananya16 · Answer

I did not quite understand the solution. required

bb · Answer

That’s OK, work your way from easier questions. You can always decide what’s worth investing time into understanding versus not.

mrtester101 · Answer

Final check. Testing. Please ignore.

Manan_Kaji · Answer

I don’t quite agree with the solution. The fact that the number of textbook users will not reduce is already stated as a premise in the paragraph. Option B states the same thing as in the premise and does not have any additional conclusion. What can definitely be concluded is that if the library gains more readers of digital ebooks along with the number of textbook users remaining the same overall readers will increase and thus will be engagement with the library

Bunuel · Answer

The question has been removed from the database.

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