The Knewton Blog

Below are two brutal GMAT questions — one math, one verbal. Answers will be discussed by our expert team of teachers in our interactive classroom live on Monday night at 9pm EDT. One lucky student will receive the Knewton GMAT course free during the webinar!

Answer the 2 brutally hard challenges in comments below and then sign up for the Monday night webinar to get the answers. Are YOU up to the challenge?

Verbal

Challenging the hypothesis that tuberculosis could only be transmitted when someone inhaled air that had been exhaled by an infected individual, an article published in Nature magazine in 1872 reported that when examined, monkeys that had been kept in confinement and had consequently never breathed contaminated air still displayed tubercles in their lungs and presented with the same symptoms that individuals infected with tuberculosis did, and that they did not always transmit the disease upon coming in contact with an uninfected monkey.

A) and had consequently never breathed contaminated air still displayed tubercles in their lungs and presented with the same symptoms that individuals infected with tuberculosis did, and that

B) consequently never breathed contaminated air, still displaying tubercles in their lungs and presenting with the same symptoms as individuals who had been infected with tuberculosis did, and that

C) and consequently had never breathed contaminated air, still displayed tubercles in their lungs and had presented the same symptoms as individuals infected with tuberculosis, and

D) had consequently never breathed contaminated air, but still they displayed tubercles in their lungs and presented with the same symptoms as individuals infected with tuberculosis, and that

E) and consequently they had never breathed contaminated air still displayed tubercles in their lungs and presented with the same symptoms that individuals infected with tuberculosis, and

Math

In a roomful of spies, some spies carry Argentinian passports, some carry Bolivian passports, and some carry Chilean passports. Every spy carries at least one passport, no spy carries more than one passport from a given country, and only one spy carries passports from all three countries. The number of spies who carry Bolivian passports is two more than the number of spies who carry Argentinian passports, two less than the number of spies who carry Chilean passports, twice the number of spies who carry both Bolivian and Chilean passports, and half the total number of spies in the room. The number of spies who carry both Argentinian and Bolivian passports is two more than the number of spies who carry both Argentinian and Chilean passports and two less than the number of spies who carry both Bolivian and Chilean passports. If a spy is selected at random, what is the probability that he will carry an Argentinian passport?

A) 2/9
B) 13/57
C) 6/23
D) 3/7
E) 1/2

Posted in GMAT, GMAT Tips, Quant Guide | 12 comments