Hamburger

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Hamburger

by j_shreyans » Thu Oct 30, 2014 10:29 pm
Guests at a recent party ate a total of fifteen hamburgers. Each guest who was neither a student nor a vegetarian ate exactly one hamburger; no other guests ate hamburgers. If half of the guests were vegetarians, how many guests attended the party?

(1) The vegetarians attended the party at a rate of 2 students to every 3 non-students, half the rate for non-vegetarians.

(2) 30% of the guests were vegetarian non-students.

Guys ,

I tried to solve this question by Double matrix, but couldn't succeed....

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by GMATGuruNY » Fri Oct 31, 2014 12:34 am
Guests at a recent party ate a total of fifteen hamburgers. Each guest who was neither a student nor a vegetarian ate exactly one hamburger. No hamburger was eaten by any guest who was a student, a vegetarian, or both. If half of the guests were vegetarians, how many guests attended the party?

(1) The vegetarians attended the party at a rate of 2 students to every 3 non-students, half the rate for non-vegetarians.
(2) 30% of the guests were vegetarian non-students.

This is an EITHER/OR group question.
Everyone is EITHER a vegetarian OR not.
Everyone is EITHER a student OR not.
Use a GROUP GRID (also known as a matrix) to organize the data.

In the grid below, V = vegetarians, NV = non-vegetarians, S = students, NS = non-students:

Image

Every row in the grid has to add up to the total, as does every column.
Looking at the top row, student vegetarians + student non-vegetarians = total students.
Looking at the left-most column, student vegetarians + non-student vegetarians = total vegetarians.

Now let's fill in the data step by step.

Let T = total.
Since half of the guests are vegetarians, V = (1/2)T, NV = (1/2)T.
Since the 15 hamburgers were eaten by the non-student NVs, 15 goes in the center box:

Image

Statement 1: The vegetarians attended the party at a rate of 2 students to every 3 non-students, half the rate for non-vegetarians.
For VEGETARIANS, students : non-students = 2:3.
The rate for non-vegetarians was TWICE the rate for vegetarians.
Thus, for NON-VEGETARIANS, we get:
(NV students) : (NV non-students) = 2 * (2:3) = 4:3.
Thus, of every 7 NVs, 4 were students and 3 were non-students, implying that 3/7 of the NVs were non-students.
Plugging this information into the grid, we get:

Image

Since in the center box we have (3/7)(1/2)T = 15, we can solve for T.
SUFFICIENT.

Statement 2: 30% of the guests were vegetarian non-students.
No way to determine what fraction of the NVs were non-students.
INSUFFICIENT.

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by Brent@GMATPrepNow » Fri Oct 31, 2014 7:57 am
I'd like to point out that Mitch's "group grid" approach (aka the Double Matrix Method)can be used for most questions featuring a population in which each member has two characteristics associated with it.
Here, we have a population of guests , and the two characteristics are:
- student or not a student
- vegetarian or non-vegetarian

This question type is VERY COMMON on the GMAT, so be sure to master the technique.

To learn more about the Double Matrix Method, watch our free video: https://www.gmatprepnow.com/module/gmat- ... ems?id=919

Once you're familiar with this technique, you can attempt these additional practice questions:

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Difficult Data Sufficiency questions
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Cheers,
Brent
Brent Hanneson - Creator of GMATPrepNow.com
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