Aristotle # 4

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by GMATGuruNY » Sat Oct 24, 2015 10:50 am
oquiella wrote:4. Is x/y a terminating decimal?
(1) x is a multiple of 2
(2) y is a multiple of 3


Why not C? Explain
Both statements are satisfied by the following cases:

Case 1: x=2 and y=3
In this case, x/y = 2/3 = .666.....
Since x/y is non-terminating, the answer to the question stem is NO.

Case 2: x=6 and y=3
In this case, x/y = 6/3 = 2.
Since x/y is terminating, the answer to the question stem is YES.

Since the answer is NO in Case 1 but YES in Case 2, the two statements combined are INSUFFICIENT.

The correct answer is E.
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by Matt@VeritasPrep » Sun Oct 25, 2015 11:03 pm
Conceptually you could think of it this way:

x/y =

2k/3m =

(2/3) * (k/m)

So if (k/m) = 3 * (a terminating decimal), our decimal will terminate. But we don't know anything about (k/m), so the answer is E.