Udane is planning a trip between the cities of Bilbao and

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Udane is planning a trip between the cities of Bilbao and Bayonne, both of whose central train stations and airports are located exactly 151 km apart. He will depart next Thursday and take either a train or a plane. If both the train and the plane depart and arrive on time, and Udane leaves his home in Bilbao for both the train station and the airport at the same time on Thursday morning, would his trip to Bayonne take longer if he travels by train than if he travels by plane?

The train travels at a constant rate of 100km per hour, while the plane travels at a constant rate of 200km hour.
If Udane walks to the train station it will take him 45 minutes, but by taxi it will only take 20.

Statement (1) ALONE is sufficient, but statement (2) alone is not sufficient to answer the question asked

Statement (2) ALONE is sufficient, but statement (1) alone is not sufficient to answer the question asked

Both statements (1) and (2) TOGETHER are sufficient to answer the question asked; but NEITHER statement ALONE is sufficient

EACH statement ALONE is sufficient to answer the question asked

Statements (1) and (2) TOGETHER are NOT sufficient to answer the question asked, and additional data specific to the problem are needed



why we need to check for E , why we pay attention on option B ?

IMO - A

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by Tommy Wallach » Wed Jan 30, 2013 12:23 pm
Hey Udane,

Cool idea for a question, but it seems funky. Just looking at it, we don't know how long it takes to get to the airport, so how could we possibly compare? If we were to assume he STARTED at the airport/train station, that would be different. But statement 2 tells us that he has to travel to the train station, so we would assume he would also have to travel to the airport. If we don't know where it is, there's no way to know how long it takes to get there. It could be one minute away, in which case taking the plane is definitely faster; it could be six hours away, in which case the train will be faster.

Just to run this logic through the statements.

1) So it'll take 1.51 hours by train, and slightly more than 45 minutes by plane. Great, but we don't know long it takes him to get from his house to the train station/airport.

2) This tells us nothing at all, except that getting to the train station could take from 20-45 minutes.

1+2) We still don't know how long it takes him to get from his house to the airport, so there's no way to know.

E

If the official answer is something else, than this question hasn't been written correctly.

Hope that helps!

-t
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