What to Do When You Find a Weighted Average Question In the Verbal Section of the GMAT

Weighted averages show up everywhere on the GMAT. Most test-takers are prepared to see them on the Quantitative Section, but they’ll show up on the Integrated Reasoning and  Verbal Sections, as well.   Because it is such an exam staple, we want to make sure that we have a thorough, intuitive understanding of the concept. In class, I’ll typically start with a simple example. Say you have two solutions, A and B. A is 10% salt and B is 20% salt. If we combine these two solutions to get a composite solution that is 14% salt, do we have more A or B in this composite solution? Most students eventually see that we’ll have more of solution A, but it doesn’t always feel instinctive.  If we had had equal quantities of both solutions, the combined solution would have been 15% salt equidistant from 10% and 20%. So, if there is 14% salt, the average skews closer to A than B, and thus, there must be more of solution A. I’ll then give another example. Say that there is an intergalactic party in which both humans and aliens are present. The humans, on average, are 6 feet tall. The aliens, on average, are 100 feet tall. If the average height at the party is 99 feet, who is dominating the party? It isn’t so hard to see that this party is packed with aliens and that the few humans present would likely spend the evening cowering in some distant corner of the room. The upshot is that it’s easier to feel the intuition behind a weighted average question when the numbers are extreme. Take this tough Critical Reasoning argument for example: To be considered for inclusion in the Barbizon Film Festival, a film must belong either to the category of drama or of comedy. Dramas always receive more submissions but have a lower acceptance rate than comedy. All of the films are either foreign or domestic. This year, the overall acceptance rate for domestic films was significantly higher than that for foreign films. Within each category, drama and comedy, however, the acceptance rate for domestic films was the same as that for foreign films. From the cited facts it can be properly concluded that (A) significantly fewer foreign films than domestic films were accepted. (B) a higher proportion of the foreign than of the domestic films submitted were submitted as dramas. (C) the rate of acceptance of foreign films submitted was the same for drama as it was for comedies. (D) the majority of the domestic films submitted were submitted as comedies. (E) the majority of the foreign films submitted were submitted as dramas. Okay. We know that dramas had a lower acceptance rate than comedies, and we know that the overall acceptance rate for domestic films was significantly higher than the acceptance rate for foreign films. So, let’s assign some easy numbers to try and get a handle on this information: Say that the acceptance rate for dramas was 1% and the acceptance rate for comedies was 99%. We’ll also say that the acceptance rate for domestic films was 98% and the acceptance rate for foreign films was 2%. The acceptance rate within both domestic and foreign films is a weighted average of comedies and dramas. If only dramas were submitted, clearly the acceptance rate would be 1%. If only comedies were submitted, the acceptance rate would be 99%. If equal amounts of both were submitted, the acceptance rate would be 50%. What do our numbers tell us? Well, if the acceptance rate for domestic films was 98%, then almost all of these films must have been  comedies, and if the acceptance rate for foreign films was 2%, then nearly all of these films must have been  dramas. So, domestic films were weighted towards comedies and foreign films were weighted towards drama. (An unfair stereotype, perhaps, but this is GMAC’s question, not mine.) We can see that answer choice A is out, as we only have information regarding rates of acceptance, not absolute numbers.  C is also  out, as it violates a crucial premise of the question stem we know that the acceptance rate for dramas is lower than for comedies, irrespective of whether we’re talking about foreign or domestic films. That leaves us with answer choices B, D and E. So now what? Let’s pick another round of values, but see if we can invalidate two of the three remaining options. What if the acceptance rate for domestic films was 3% and the acceptance rate for foreign films was still 2%? (We’ll keep the acceptance rate for dramas at 1% and the acceptance rate for comedies at 99%.) Now domestic films would be mostly dramas, so option D is out – the majority of domestic films would not be comedies, as this   answer choice states. Similarly, what if the acceptance rate for domestic films was 98% and the rate for foreign films was 97%? Now the foreign films would be mostly comedies, so option E is also out – the majority of foreign films would not be  dramas, as this answer choice states. Because the acceptance rate is lower for dramas than it is for comedies, and foreign films have a lower acceptance rate than do domestic films, the foreign films must be weighted more heavily towards dramas than domestic films are. This analysis is perfectly captured in option  B, which is, in fact, the correct answer. Takeaway: certain concepts, such as weighted averages, are such exam staples that will  appear in both Quant and Verbal questions. If you see one of these examples in the Verbal Section, assigning extreme values to the information you are given can help you get a handle on the underlying logic being tested. Plan on taking the GMAT soon? We have  GMAT prep courses  starting all the time. And be sure to follow us on  Facebook,  YouTube,  Google+  and  Twitter! By  David Goldstein,  a Veritas Prep GMAT instructor based in  Boston. You can find more articles written by him  here.