Dear Reviewer,

Thank you for your thoughtful review of our paper.  We've done our best to incorporate changes to address all of your comments in the newest draft of the paper.  Please find below responses item-by-item, marked with ---> .

Cheers,
The authors

Reviewer #2: 
Manuscript Summary: 
In this paper on the Setting limits on 
supersymmetry using simplified models, the authors 
use the simplified models approach to set limits on the minimal
supergravity model. 
The paper is interesting and worth publishing 
but there are some issues that should be resolved/answered 
before I can finally recommend publication. 

Major Concerns:
It looks like the authors define BR_(a->i) in Eq. 1 of the paper 
based on what they show in Figs 1-2 . Given, for instance,
what they call SM2 (gl -> chi^0 qbar q) and taking
as a reference the benchmark point given in 
Fig. 2d, it looks like they define:

BR_(SM2) = BR(gl->chi^0 qbar q)
--------------------------------------------------------------
BR(gl->chi^0 qbar q) + BR(gl->chi^+ qbar q) BR (chi^+ -> chi^0 W) + ....

In this way the signal is enhanced with respect to just take:

BR_(SM2) = BR(gl->chi^0 qbar q)

---> This is only done in Eq. 4 and 5, where we explicitly write the denominator.  In the first three equations, we do not normalize to the list of simplified models (as the equation indicates).

Actually this is the way in which the authors define the 
branching fraction of a simplified model. 

---> Defining the branching fraction this way is equivalent to making the assumption that the kinematics of the non-described decays are the same as the (weighted) kinematics of the described decays.  This is indeed one of the assumptions that we explore, but it is not an assumption made in either of the first three limit configurations (which are more conservative, as can be seen from the final limits).

This way could solve the expected problem of obtaining a low 
signal in the large m0 region where one has many more 3 body decays of 
gluinos that the considered at the level of simplified models. I consider this 
somehow artificial since essentially by doing like that,
the authors are simply saying that the gluino only decays
through the processes one has simulated, which may
well define a reasonable model, but one is no more
in mSUGRA. 

---> We agree that doing this for all limit equations would have been artificial.

Of course one may also argue that the different decays
at the end of the day have similar topologies, but this is
a bit stretched. 
Could the authors justify this approach and comment 
about its applicability to models beyond the minimal 
supergravity scenario ?

---> Indeed, this is one of the points of the kinematic comparison that we describe later in the paper and show in Figures 6-8.  If these kinematic comparisons look reasonable, then one can be much more confident in this assumption.  This is discussed further in the example application section of the paper.

The authors include in the analysis the pair production of charginos 
but I don't understand why they have not considered the 
production of the second lightest neutralino as well since it has similar 
mass to the lightest chargino when it is wino-like which happens 
in a large portion of the mSUGRA parameter space. 
Could the authors clarify this ?

---> The primary reason is that the analyses included in this study were 0- and 1-lepton searches for SUSY, and the neutralino decay to the LSP typically happens through a Z when it is Wino-like as you say.  Generally these decays produce either two leptons (in which case they are selected by neither analysis at very high efficiency) or no leptons (in which case they are selected by the zero-lepton analysis but at a rate much lower than and with kinematics much less favorable than strong production).  We therefore decided that this was not a mode that was of significant concern in modeling the events in the signal regions - and indeed, even the chargino production does not enter the signal region significantly.

---> We certainly agree that if someone wishes to include electroweak searches, both chargino and neutralino production simplified models should be included in their "dictionary".

Minor Concerns:
There is a typo in page 9, third paragraph:

m_squark-/m_gluino - m_LSP -> m_squark/m_gluino - m_LSP

---> Fixed