making creativity in og question

[Black Hole]

Hi Instructor, If someone ask any question by making creativity in math, which resembles the Official question but the version is changed and also answer option is changed, will it violate the forum rules?

[RonPurewal]

i assume you're talking about the problem you posted in your other thread.

in general you should avoid making a habit of this.
but, if you're going to try, there are basically 2 criteria.

1/
could someone reasonably come up with the same question INDEPENDENTLY? i.e., without having seen the GMAC item?
if the answer to this is yes, then you are totally ok posting your question.

2/
if not, then is your item substantively different from the GMAC item?
this is usually the problem:
• you need to satisfy this criterion to avoid intellectual-property / copyright issues,
BUT
• if someone makes a problem that's substantively different from the original, there's a fairly high probability that the new item will be outside the scope of what is tested on the exam.

in other words, it's a catch-22 situation:
• if your problem is too much like the original, then we have to delete it;
but
• if it's not, it's probably irrelevant.
|:

[RonPurewal]

in any case, here is the practical result of the above:

• basically, you should not bother even trying to do this with verbal problems.
(if you have a very, very specific issue with a SC or CR problem, then it is pretty much assured that you would not have thought of that issue by yourself.)

• with quant problems it is generally ok, as long as you are working with general enough concepts.

YOUR problem in the other thread (with reciprocals) is okay, because GMAC does not own the ideas of 'sum' and 'reciprocal' (which are the only important functional parts in the problem). so, in your case, the answer to question #1 here is yes.
in other words, exactly the same issue could very reasonably come up in, say, a high-school algebra course.

[RonPurewal]

here: here's a crude, but surprisingly effective, test:

• copy the words that constitute the issue.
• paste them into google (or another search engine).
• look at the results.

if you mostly (or entirely) see web pages that deal with the specific GMAC item that prompted your question, then, sorry, we can't host the question.

if you mostly see non-GMAT-related pages, then your question is probably okay.

e.g., here, when i plug your material (from this thread) into google, i mostly see pages from physics courses. so, you are totally fine there.