rainbownlife wrote:Till now i assumed that consecutive numbers are always integers. But check the following question I found on test magic.
Here is the question:
What the median of 7 consecutive numbers?
(1) arithmetic mean is 1 (2)total value of 7 numbers is INTEGER
Can .5,.6,.7 be consecutive? I think its only integers. So answer should be A.
However They say official answer is E. Not sure if this is correct answer.
Anybody ??
Numbers does NOT mean integers. The consecutive numbers could be 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7 or .3, .4, .5, .6, .7, .8, .9 or -10, -9, -8, etc you get the idea.
Statement 1) the mean = 1. since the mean is 1, and the # of numbers = 7, the sum of these numbers = 7.
Given that, the number set could be: -2, -1, 0, 1, 2, 3, 4. This would give us 7 consecutive numbers with a mean of 1.
However, according to this statement, the number set could also be: 0.7, 0.8, 0.9, 1, 1.1, 1.2, 1.3. This also gives us 7 consecutive numbers with a mean of 1.
Since we dont have a definate answer, statement 1 is insufficent. (ruling out option A and D, leaving choices B, C or E.)
Statement 2) the total value of the 7 numbers is an integer.
All this tells us is that the sum of the 7 numbers is an integer. This alone doesn’t really tell us anything. So it is not sufficient. (Rule out B as an answer)
Statement 1 and 2) looking at them together, we know that the mean is 1, and the sum of the 7 numbers is an integer.
The number sets -2, -1, 0, 1, 2, 3, 4 and 0.7, 0.8, 0.9, 1, 1.1, 1.2, 1.3 both satisfy these conditions, since the sum of both sets is = 7 (an integer) and the mean of both sets = 1.
Together, statement 1 and 2 are still insufficient.
The answer is E. I hope that helped!
