Data Sufficiency
You decide whether the given statements are enough to answer, not what the answer is. The five standard options, the discipline of testing each statement alone before combining, and the traps that catch fast readers.
What you will be able to do
- State the five standard data-sufficiency options precisely.
- Test statement I alone and statement II alone before ever combining them.
- Judge sufficiency as 'is the answer uniquely determined', and stop there.
- Recognise the assumption traps that make an insufficient statement look sufficient.
What is inside this lesson
- 1A different question
- 2The five standard options
- 3Test each statement alone, then combine
- 4What 'sufficient' means
- 5Three solved items
- 6Common traps
- 7Quick revision
- 8Practice
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A different question
A data sufficiency item gives a question and two numbered statements. You are not asked for the answer to the question. You are asked whether the statements — alone, or together — give enough information to pin the answer down to a single value.
This means you often stop well before a full solution. The moment you can see that a statement forces one and only one answer, that statement is sufficient; you do not compute it. Equally, the moment you find two different answers consistent with a statement, it is insufficient.
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