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Data sufficiency: stop as soon as it is settled

It asks whether you COULD answer, not what the answer is. Solving is the error.

9 min read

Data sufficiency gives a question and two statements, and asks whether the statements are enough to answer it. The five answer choices never change, and neither does the discipline: you are deciding sufficiency, not computing a value.

Work the statements separately first, and mean it. Assess statement 1 alone. Then deliberately forget it and assess statement 2 alone. The commonest error in the whole item type is letting information from the first statement leak into your reading of the second — and it produces the answer "both together", which is why "both" is the most over-chosen option.

Sufficiency means ONE answer, not a nice answer. A statement that narrows the value to 4 or −4 is not sufficient when the question asks for the value. A statement that proves x is positive IS sufficient when the question only asks whether x is positive.

Stop the moment it is settled. Once you know a statement determines the answer, move on. Doing the arithmetic afterwards is time spent buying nothing, and across twenty questions it is the difference between finishing and not.

Yes/no questions are different from value questions. For a yes/no, sufficiency means always yes or always no. A statement that sometimes gives yes and sometimes no is insufficient — and that is exactly what testing 0, 1, a fraction and a negative will reveal.

A habit worth building. Before reading either statement, write down what you would need in order to answer — "I need the rate, or both the distance and the time". Then each statement is checked against a list rather than judged by feel.

Do this now

Five to ten minutes. This is the part that moves your band.

Take five data-sufficiency questions. For each, write what you would need BEFORE reading the statements, then mark the exact moment sufficiency was settled. If you finished the arithmetic on any of the five, that is the habit to break.

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