From the stem:
• Lines 1, 2, and 5 are one rhyme group.
• Lines 3 and 4 are another rhyme group.
Statement (1):
"The sequence includes two consecutive A's and two consecutive B's."
Possible sequences consistent with the stem:
• AABBA
• BBAAB
Both have:
• two consecutive A's
• two consecutive B's
Both match the rhyme-group structure:
• positions 1,2,5 are the same letter
• positions 3,4 are the same letter
The DS question is asking:
"Did Joe's poem have rhyme scheme ***** ?"
That means: can we determine the exact sequence?
Under Statement (1), we cannot tell whether the sequence was:
• AABBA
• BBAAB
Therefore Statement (1) is NOT sufficient.
The reason GMAT allows BBAAB here is that it is focusing on the unknown sequence ***** itself, not on reconstructing the rhyme scheme from scratch using naming conventions. The statement does not tell us which rhyme group was assigned the label A and which was assigned B.
Statement (2):
"Only the third and fourth letters are B."
This directly forces:
AABBA
Therefore Statement (2) is sufficient.
Conclusion:
Stem + (1) → AABBA or BBAAB → two possibilities → Not Sufficient
Stem + (2) → only AABBA → Sufficient
Answer: B
(Statement (2) alone is sufficient, but Statement (1) alone is not sufficient.)
uarmybakbak
Hi, I'm confused about the prompt "Letter sequences, starting with the letter A, are used to describe rhyme schemes in a poem.". So the sequence starts with A, and lines 1, 2, and 5 rhyme while lines 3 and 4 rhyme. Doesn’t that already fix the pattern as AABBA?
If so, why do we still need the statements? I chose D because the pattern seemed fixed.