collection of tough problems from G PREP - 25

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A certain military vehicle can run on pure Fuel X, pure Fuel Y, or any mixture of X and Y. Fuel X costs $3 per gallon; the vehicle can go 20 miles on a gallon of Fuel X. In contrast, Fuel Y costs $5 per gallon, but the vehicle can go 40 miles on a gallon of Fuel Y. What is the cost per gallon of the fuel mixture currently in the vehicle's tank?

1) Using fuel currently in its tank, the vehicle burned 8 gallons to cover 200 miles.

2) The vehicle can cover 7 and 1/7 miles for every dollar of fuel currently in its tank
Source: — Data Sufficiency |

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by shashank.ism » Mon Feb 08, 2010 3:30 am
abhasjha wrote:A certain military vehicle can run on pure Fuel X, pure Fuel Y, or any mixture of X and Y. Fuel X costs $3 per gallon; the vehicle can go 20 miles on a gallon of Fuel X. In contrast, Fuel Y costs $5 per gallon, but the vehicle can go 40 miles on a gallon of Fuel Y. What is the cost per gallon of the fuel mixture currently in the vehicle's tank?

1) Using fuel currently in its tank, the vehicle burned 8 gallons to cover 200 miles.

2) The vehicle can cover 7 and 1/7 miles for every dollar of fuel currently in its tank
statement 1: Let X be gallon of fuel X and Y be gallon of fuel Y.

so 20 X+ 40(8-X) = 200 --> X=6 and Y=2
so cost per gallon of mixture = (3*6+2*5)/8 = $3.5 per gallon .....sufficient.

statement 2 is not clear: vehicle covers 7 + 1/7 miles or 7 miles from 1st fuel and 1/7 mile from 2nd fuel...


abhas will you please make this clear..
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by ajith » Tue Feb 09, 2010 4:18 am
abhasjha wrote:A certain military vehicle can run on pure Fuel X, pure Fuel Y, or any mixture of X and Y. Fuel X costs $3 per gallon; the vehicle can go 20 miles on a gallon of Fuel X. In contrast, Fuel Y costs $5 per gallon, but the vehicle can go 40 miles on a gallon of Fuel Y. What is the cost per gallon of the fuel mixture currently in the vehicle's tank?

1) Using fuel currently in its tank, the vehicle burned 8 gallons to cover 200 miles.

2) The vehicle can cover 7 and 1/7 miles for every dollar of fuel currently in its tank

We have to assume that the mixture will behave linearly in terms of mileage as its components change, Which is not given to solve this
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