Chapter 29

QC Basics & Game Plan

Whether you've spent a lot of time with Quantitative Comparison questions, or whether you're brand new to the question format, it's worth reviewing the basics of QC.

1. For QC questions, you need to compare Quantity A with Quantity B and decide whether:

   1. Quantity A is greater.
   2. Quantity B is greater.
   3. The two quantities are equal.
   4. The relationship cannot be determined from the information given.

2. The first three answer choices have an implied always before the word “greater” or “equal.” The answer choices can really be thought of this way:

   1. Quantity A is always greater.
   2. Quantity B is always greater.
   3. The two quantities are always equal.
   4. The relationship cannot be determined from the information given, or no consistent relationship exists. For instance, it might be that most of the time, Quantity A is greater, but in just one case, Quantity B is greater, or the two quantities are equal.

D is different from abc

As mentioned above, answer choices (A), (B), and (C) all have an implied always. (D) is different. It's the sometimes choice: sometimes the comparison goes one way, sometimes it goes another way. You can even think of (D) as "not always."

This means that you should treat (D) differently from the other answer choices. We'll come back to this idea shortly.

The need for a game plan

Let's pause for a moment. You've now begun to see how QC can be more complicated than it might seem. The answer choices are fixed, but they don't all work the same way. (D) is different, and you should treat it differently somehow...

Hold on. What do you really need?

You need a QC Game Plan. 

That is, you need a solid, simple, universal approach to Quantitative Comparison questions.

That Game Plan what we'll develop in this chapter. We'll start with the simplest version in Round 1. In Rounds 2, 3, and 4, we'll add more nuances and techniques. Those nuances and techniques, however, will all fit under the simple core Game Plan.