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Cars and Trucks!

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Cars and Trucks!

by zagcollins » Fri Jul 18, 2008 11:54 pm
A certain company that sells only cars and trucks reported that revenues from car sales in 1997 were down 11 percent from 1996 and revenues from truck sales in 1997 were up 7 percent from 1996. If total revenues from car sales and truck sales in 1997 were up 1 percent from 1996, what is the ratio of revenue from car sales in 1996 to revenue from truck sales in 1996?

A. 1 : 2
B. 4 : 5
C. 1 : 1
D. 3 : 2
E. 5 : 3

While answer option is 1:2, i 'm getting a ratio of 2:1.. confused! :?
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by GMATDavid » Sat Jul 19, 2008 10:16 am
Rather than trying to set this up with your own equation, try just using the answer choices. Using (A), for example:

If the 1996 C:T ratio was 1:2, then cars revenue could have been 100, and trucks revenue could have been 200.

We are told that cars revenue went down 11%, so the 1997 revenue was 89.

We are told that trucks revenue went up 7%, so the 1997 revenue was 214.

We are also told that the total revenue went up 3%. If we add the two 1997 revenues together, we get 303, which is indeed 1% higher than the total 1996 revenue of 300.

Thus, we know we have the correct answer.
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by zagcollins » Sat Jul 19, 2008 7:49 pm
the total revenue increased by 1%, not 3%... :shock:
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by egybs » Sat Jul 19, 2008 11:05 pm
No need to test numbers:

we know that :
-cars decreased by 11% so the rev. is (89/100)x
-trucks increased by 7% so the rev is (107/100)y
-cars and trucks increased by 1% so the rev. is (101/100)(x+y)

So:
(89/100)x + (107/100)y = (101/100)(x+y)
(89/100)x + (107/100)y = (101/100)x + (101/100)y
(6/100)y = (12/100)x
y = 2x

Since we're being asked for the ratio of car sales to truck sales, we want to find x/y....
x/y = 1/2
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