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S, O, A, and P

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by sanju09 » Tue Oct 20, 2009 5:32 am
Each packet of SOAP costs $10. Inside each packet is a gift coupon labeled with one of the letters S, O, A, and P. If a customer submits four such coupons that make up the word SOAP, the customer gets a free SOAP packet. Ms. X kept buying packet after packet of SOAP till she could get one set of coupons that formed the word SOAP. How many coupons with label P did she get in the above process?

(1) The last label obtained by her was S and the total amount spent was $210.

(2) The total number of vowels obtained was 18.


OA in the next post.
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Source: — Data Sufficiency |
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Re: S, O, A, and P

by mridula » Tue Oct 20, 2009 5:38 am
sanju09 wrote:Each packet of SOAP costs $10. Inside each packet is a gift coupon labeled with one of the letters S, O, A, and P. If a customer submits four such coupons that make up the word SOAP, the customer gets a free SOAP packet. Ms. X kept buying packet after packet of SOAP till she could get one set of coupons that formed the word SOAP. How many coupons with label P did she get in the above process?

(1) The last label obtained by her was S and the total amount spent was $210.

(2) The total number of vowels obtained was 18.


OA in the next post.

I think it should be C.
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by aakar » Tue Oct 20, 2009 6:28 am
I choose "C"

Statement 1 only tells us she bought 21 soaps ($210/$10). Statement 2 only tells us that there are 18 vowels.

Together these statements tell us that there are 18 O and A's. Thus this leaves us with 3 S, P's.

The last letter is an S, so now we have either 2 P's or an S and P for the other 2 letters. If the last letter is an S, this tells us that the word SOAP is a result of one and only one S, the last S. C it is.
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by ayashlaha » Sun Oct 25, 2009 2:51 pm
You are souble counting the last S.

$210 implies 21 bars purchased
A - Cleary insufficient
B - Also insufficient

Take them together
-18 vowels
- 3 soaps remain
- Last is 'S'
- 2 remain => both could be P OR could be an S and a P

Hence both together are insufficient

Answer should be E
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by satish.nagdev » Sun Oct 25, 2009 11:14 pm
aakar wrote:I choose "C"
The last letter is an S, so now we have either 2 P's or an S and P for the other 2 letters. If the last letter is an S, this tells us that the word SOAP is a result of one and only one S, the last S. C it is.
E for me, question doesn't mention that one SOAP word has been formed or so.

whats oa
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Its C

by neonite » Sun Oct 25, 2009 11:56 pm
I agree with aakar.

Since S is the last picked letter, that means the customer was waiting for S to complete his/her SOAP.O,A and P only had arrived by the 20th pick.

Therefore putting together 1 & 2, we get P was picked 2 times exactly
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