From the course: Preparing for the GMAT

Multi-source reasoning questions

From the course: Preparing for the GMAT

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Multi-source reasoning questions

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- [Instructor] So perhaps the most complex looking questions of all on the GMAT, multi-source reasoning questions present you with two or three sources of information on the left and ask questions on the right. Let's have a look at an example of one of these questions. So these two or three sources of information are going to be labeled with tabs and you can click and tab between them all. It's going to be one written passage most likely and then one visual source as well and really the key is only focus on what you need. There's going to be a ton of information. You don't need to read it all or understand it all especially at first. Okay so here we have a multi-source reasoning question and obviously we have so much information here. We wouldn't want to just sit here and read it all before we think about the question. So normally these sections, techniques, accuracy, and budget would be in different tabs. Just for visual ease, I've put them all in one screen for you. So the first thing that I probably want to do is just look at these categories, I'm not going to read anything yet, and then I'm going to look at the question and I see, if I peek at the answer choices, I see that we have basically choices between things like bioelectrical impedance tests, whatever they are, skin caliper tests and DEXA tests. And then I'm going to just read the question. So a new Fancy Gym client requests a monthly body fat percent measurement that is as accurate as possible. Based on Fancy Gym's assumptions, which of the following combinations of tests will be appropriate to offer the client for the year? So if I look at a macro level, the techniques seem to be tons of wordy description about the techniques and I'm gravitating away from that. I want to look at accuracy first because remember in the question it says as accurate as possible and I see that the skin caliper is plus or minus 5%, bioelectrical impedance plus or minus 2.5% and DEXA seems like the most accurate plus or minus 1.5%. So now I'm thinking okay we want to look at answer choices with a lot of DEXA in them if we can. And then I see the budget so I probably have to pay attention to something in here and when I find that the total yearly budget for clients for tests per client is $325, okay now I have a restraint. So if I think about choice E for example, 12 months of DEXA tests, obviously that would be the most accurate according to these accuracy statistics here. However, at 50 bucks a test, it's $600 way more than $325. Then I'll try D because that looks like the second most accurate because it has nine months of DEXA, but very quickly I realize nine times 50 is 450, that's way over budget already. And then I'm down to C, six months of DEXA $300, $50 per test, and then skin caliper test are unlimited budget so basically free. So this seems like the most accurate option that we have for the client. So the answer choice C is correct. So remember there's no way you need to absorb every bit of information in these multi-source reasoning questions. It's more important to get a macro view of each source so you know where to go for particular pieces of information.

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