Problem Solving

Hi Everyone,

Getting back on to the blogs after a long hiatus... I got a little over a month for my exam. So I was reading on the Word problems and here is something that I wanted opinion on.

" Bill received three fewer presents for his birthday than did John, who received half the number of presents as Betty and Sue Averaged. If Sue received as many as John and Betty put together, and Bill and John together received one more than did Betty, how many presents did Bill receive? "

Here is how I wrote down my 4 equations

(1) Bi = Jo -3
(2) Jo = 1/2 ((Betty + Sue)/2)
(3) Sue = Jo+Betty
(4) Bi +Jo = Betty +1

Are these equations correct ?

Yes according to me you have written the correct equations.

My answer = 45

1)B=J-3
2)J=1/4(Be+S)
3)S=J+Be
4)B+J=Be+1

from 2 and 3

J= 1/4(2Be+J)
J=2/3Be -5

from 1 and 4

Be+1=2J-3
Be= 4/3Be-3 (Using 5)
Be=12

B+J=12+1=13

S= 2/3(12)+12=20

B+J+S+Be= (13)+(20)+(12)=45

what is OA?

Rishab,

Thanks for responding to the post. There isn't an answer given. This is a snippet from the GMAT Premier 2011 (KAPLAN), where they talk about Word Problems.

According to the book the equation(2) is Jo = (Be + S) /2 and not (Be+S)/4

Also the question asks how many presents did Bill receive and not the total.

Bill =5
John=8
Sue=20
Betty=12

yep made a silly mistake. silly me.

yea B would be 5. B+J=13 and J=B+3; so B=5

What does kaplan have to say?

Hi Folks,

You've got it right--it's a typo. At Kaplan, we do our best to provide the best educational experience we can to all of our students. But we're only human, and now and then an error will slip through our editing process. Thanks for pointing it out--I'll make sure this gets corrected for the next printing!

Eli

anuptvm wrote:Hi Everyone,

Getting back on to the blogs after a long hiatus... I got a little over a month for my exam. So I was reading on the Word problems and here is something that I wanted opinion on.

" Bill received three fewer presents for his birthday than did John, who received half the number of presents as Betty and Sue Averaged. If Sue received as many as John and Betty put together, and Bill and John together received one more than did Betty, how many presents did Bill receive? "

Here is how I wrote down my 4 equations

(1) Bi = Jo -3
(2) Jo = 1/2 ((Betty + Sue)/2)
(3) Sue = Jo+Betty
(4) Bi +Jo = Betty +1

Are these equations correct ?

may you post the answer? i got it total=35 and bill =4

diebeatsthegmat wrote:
may you post the answer? i got it total=35 and bill =4

The answer is:
Bill =5
John=8
Sue=20
Betty=12

KapTeacherEli wrote:Hi Folks,

You've got it right--it's a typo. At Kaplan, we do our best to provide the best educational experience we can to all of our students. But we're only human, and now and then an error will slip through our editing process. Thanks for pointing it out--I'll make sure this gets corrected for the next printing!

Eli

Thanks Eli, there are quiet a few other errors that I came across in the book.

Page 322: surface area of rectangular solids, the formula given is SA = 2lw X 2lh X 2wh
This should read SA = 2lw+ 2lh + 2wh

Page 375 : Problem solving - Picking numbers

The questions is 7^b+7^b+7^b+7^b+7^b+7^b+7^b =

the answer choices are :
a. 7^b
b. (7)^b+7
c. (7)^7b
d. 8^b
e. 49^b

I believe the correct answer should be (7)^b+1