From the course: Test Prep: GRE

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Backsolving technique

Backsolving technique

From the course: Test Prep: GRE

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Backsolving technique

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- OK, so here's a fun fact about GRE multiple choice math questions. One of the answers is correct. OK, I know that's completely obvious, but it's actually a fact that you can use to your advantage when you take the test. If you don't have a better way of answering a question, you might try testing the answer choices. So in this video, I'll demonstrate backsolving. So here we have a GRE-style word problem. There's a zoologist tagging penguins, and we see on the first day she tags one-third of them. And on the second day, there's 12 penguins tagged, and then the rest of them on the third day. So we could do this problem algebraically, but I'm going to demonstrate how to do it with backsolving. So, by backsolving, I just mean picking an answer choice and acting as if that answer choice is true and seeing if everything checks out. So I'm going to start with choice D, just for the sake of this exercise. So let's say I'm going to test choice D. Now, one thing, even before I decided to test…

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