cost of jewelry

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cost of jewelry

by grandh01 » Sun Aug 19, 2012 5:25 pm
A jewelry dealer initially offered a
bracelet for sale at an asking price
that would give a profit to the dealer
of 40 percent of the original cost.
What was the original cost of the
bracelet?
(1) After reducing this asking price by
10 percent, the jewelry dealer
sold the bracelet at a profit of
$403.
(2) The jewelry dealer sold the
bracelet for $1,953.

OA is A
Source: — Data Sufficiency |

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by Anurag@Gurome » Sun Aug 19, 2012 5:27 pm
grandh01 wrote:A jewelry dealer initially offered a
bracelet for sale at an asking price
that would give a profit to the dealer
of 40 percent of the original cost.
What was the original cost of the
bracelet?
(1) After reducing this asking price by
10 percent, the jewelry dealer
sold the bracelet at a profit of
$403.
(2) The jewelry dealer sold the
bracelet for $1,953.

OA is A
(1) After reducing this asking price by 10 percent, the jewelry dealer sold the bracelet at a profit of $403.
Let original selling price = S
1.4S - 0.10(1.4S) = 403 + S; SUFFICIENT.

Statement 2 is NOT sufficient in case the price at which the bracelet was sold was not the same as the asking price. I feel the language is not clear enough for this statement.

The correct answer should be A.
Anurag Mairal, Ph.D., MBA
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Gurome, Inc.
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by kaka46 » Mon Aug 20, 2012 9:29 am
Exactly @ Anurag@Gurome.

I considered the selling price as $1953 and arrived at option D until I saw your response. Thank you. Can case (2) be termed as ambiguous ?