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by CAREY33 » Sun Apr 10, 2016 4:48 pm
How do I solve this question?

1) In a survey of students, each student selected from a list of 12 songs the 2 songs the student like the best. If each song was selected 4 times, now many students were surveyed?

A) 96
B) 48
C) 32
D) 24
E) 18
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by MartyMurray » Sun Apr 10, 2016 4:58 pm
Here's a wicked easy way to solve it. A key thing to understand in handling many GMAT questions is the following.

If a solution works, then even if it is the easiest solution, all of the other solutions must create the same answer. For example, if an easy way to get to an answer to this question generates a way that all the songs were listened to four times, then assuming that the question was correctly designed, any other approach would give the same answer.

So if each student chooses 2 songs, all 12 songs can be chosen by 6 students choosing 2 songs each.

In order for all 12 to be chosen 4 times, that process has to happen 4 times.

6 x 4 = 24

The correct answer is D.
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by CAREY33 » Sun Apr 10, 2016 5:06 pm
Thanks!
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by Brent@GMATPrepNow » Mon Apr 11, 2016 6:51 am
CAREY33 wrote:How do I solve this question?

1) In a survey of students, each student selected from a list of 12 songs the 2 songs the student like the best. If each song was selected 4 times, now many students were surveyed?

A) 96
B) 48
C) 32
D) 24
E) 18
All 12 songs selected 4 times each means a TOTAL of 48 selections were made (12 x 4 = 48).
Each student makes 2 selections, so the TOTAL number of students = 48/2 = 24

Answer: D

Cheers,
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by Matt@VeritasPrep » Mon Apr 11, 2016 1:06 pm
I'd opt for Brent's way: you know that 4*12 = 48 songs were picked, and each student picked two songs, so

(# of songs picked) / (# per student) = # of students

48 / 2 = 24
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