SET

This is a very important topic in the GRE and questions on this topic often come up when the candidate is
doing pretty well in their quant section on the test day. So, this can be regarded as a harder topic. However,
it cannot be ignored totally as it may come up in any difficulty level even in easy level (however, we have
analyzed the trend and questions on SET appears more after a student has performed fairly well in the first
section of Quant).

But there is nothing to feel intimidated (Syn: daunted/timorous/timid/diffident/cautious). We will try to

explicate (Syn: Explain) this convoluted (Syn: Involved) chapter topic wise. So first we will start with the
basics of SETS.
Definition:
A set is a group of distinct elements and is denoted by {}. So if department is a set consisting of X, Y, Z
candidates then we can refer that department={X, Y, Z}. One important point to note is that SET can only
contain DISTINCT element. Thus {X, X, Y, Z} is not a set at all. This is a very important concept and is
tested by ETS in GRE topics like SET, Statistics. A SET can even be empty and can also be null (Note: empty
set and null set are different. Not imp from GRE perspective. However for any query on this, feel free to
contact us).
Intersection and Union:
Now, we know what a set is. We can say without any doubt that {1, 2, 3} is a set A and {2, 3, 4, 5} is a set
B.
So, what can be deduced from the above 2 sets. We can see that there are few elements that are common to
both the set. In Statistical term we say it as an Intersection of 2 sets (n).So intersection of set A and set B
(AnB) is {2, 3}.
There is another term called Union (u). Union of sets is a set which contain all the elements of the respective
sets. So union of set A and set B (AuB) is {1, 2, 3, 4, 5} (as mentioned set contains distinct elements so no
duplicate value exists).
It is worth mentioning that the intersection and union of more than one set is also a set.
Venn Diagrams:
Set can be very efficiently represented using Venn diagram. Below are the Venn Diagrams for set A, B, AuB
and AnB and are self-explanatory.

Problem solving becomes real easy using Venn diagrams. However we will focus on Venn diagrams when we
will look into problems containing more than 2 sets. Another point to be noted is that Venn diagram is good
in representing the total number of quantities, not the individuals.
Question Types:
SET question types can be categorized into many classes. However, in GRE SET questions can be categorized
into 2 types:

1) Questions having 2 sets (Easy/Medium Questions).

2) Questions having more than 2 sets (Generally 3 sets). (Medium/Hard Questions)
We must strategize ourselves to deal the above type of questions. We will discuss The Dual Matrix Approach
for the questions having 2 sets and The Venn Diagram Approach for questions having more than 2 sets, in
our upcoming blogs.
Check out the following videos for reference :
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=En8fI2ixepo
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YAjxRUGS0Gc
Till then Happy Learning!!!!

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