Official GMATprep trial exam question 3

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by Brent@GMATPrepNow » Mon Oct 30, 2017 8:27 am
Are at least 10% of the people in country X who are 65 years old or older employed?

1) In country X, 11.3 percent of the population is 65 years old or older.

2) In country X, of the population 65 years old or older, 20 percent of the men and 10 percent of the women are employed.
Let's use the term seniors, to refer to those who are 65 years old or older.

Target question: Are at least 10 percent of Country X's seniors employed?

Statement 1: In Country X, 11.3 percent of the population is 65 years old or older.
Okay, so we know that a certain percent of the population are seniors, but we aren't told anything about their employment rates.
Since we cannot answer the target question with certainty, statement 1 is NOT SUFFICIENT

Statement 2: Among Country X's seniors, 20 percent of the men and 10 percent of the women are employed
To get a feel for what this tells us, let's examine the two EXTREMES:
Extreme #1 - among the seniors, there are ZERO women. This means all of the seniors are men, which means 20% of the seniors are employed
Extreme #2 - among the seniors, there are ZERO men. This means all of the seniors are women, which means 10% of the seniors are employed
Now that we have examined the extremes, we have a range of values that represent the employment rate among Country X's seniors.
We can conclude: 10% < senior employment rate < 20%
In other words, at least 10 percent of Country X's seniors are employed
Since we can answer the target question with certainty, statement 2 is SUFFICIENT

Answer = B

By the way, this concept (and others) is covered in our video on weighted averages: https://www.gmatprepnow.com/module/gmat- ... ics?id=805

Cheers,
Brent
Brent Hanneson - Creator of GMATPrepNow.com
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by gmatevangelist » Thu Nov 09, 2017 3:00 am
This is the question which can be well understood through the concept of weighted average since of the 65 years old or older 20 % women and 10 % men women are employed so their weighted average will always be between 10 & 20 % , hence it can be said yes through second statement . however, first statement does not talk anything further about employed data hence nothing can be concluded through that.


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by Matt@VeritasPrep » Thu Nov 09, 2017 5:33 pm
Is it just me, or did the original post go up in smoke? I'm only seeing the replies to this (and a few other questions).