DS problem help!

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DS problem help!

by sdotgarcia » Sun Jun 22, 2014 11:24 pm
A group of 580 people participated in a survey. Each of these people indicated that they had either heard of brand A soda or had not heard of brand A soda, and each of these people indicated that they had either heard of brand B soda or had not heard of brand B soda. How many of the people surveyed indicated that they had heard of brand A soda and had not heard of brand B soda?

(1) There were 226 people who indicated that they had heard of exactly one of the two brands of soda.

(2) There were 187 people who indicated that they had not heard of either brand soda and there were 281 people who indicated that they had heard of brand B soda.

OA is B

I tried the overlapping set formula and chose C, but I guess that was unnecessary. Another explanation would be appreciated!

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by GMATGuruNY » Mon Jun 23, 2014 5:00 pm
sdotgarcia wrote:A group of 580 people participated in a survey. Each of these people indicated that they had either heard of brand A soda or had not heard of brand A soda, and each of these people indicated that they had either heard of brand B soda or had not heard of brand B soda. How many of the people surveyed indicated that they had heard of brand A soda and had not heard of brand B soda?

(1) There were 226 people who indicated that they had heard of exactly one of the two brands of soda.

(2) There were 187 people who indicated that they had not heard of either brand soda and there were 281 people who indicated that they had heard of brand B soda.

OA is B

I tried the overlapping set formula and chose C, but I guess that was unnecessary. Another explanation would be appreciated!
This is an EITHER/OR group problem.
Every person had EITHER heard of A OR had not heard of A.
Every person had EITHER heard of B OR had not heard of B.
For an EITHER/OR group problem, we can use a GROUP GRID (also known as a double-matrix) to organize the data:
Image
In the grid above, the entries in any given row or column must add up to the TOTAL of that row or column.
The question stem asks for the number of people who had heard of A but had not heard of B (represented by the question mark).

Statement 1: There were 226 people who indicated that they had heard of exactly one of the two brands of soda.
Case 1:
Image
In this case, the number of people who had heard of A but had not heard of B = 100.

Case 2:
Image
In this case, the number of people who had heard of A but had not heard of B = 126.

Since the number of people who had heard of A but had not heard of B can be different values, INSUFFICIENT.

Statement 2: There were 187 people who indicated that they had not heard of either brand soda and there were 281 people who indicated that they had heard of brand B soda.
The following grid is yielded:
Image
According to the resulting grid, the number of people who had heard of A but had not heard of B = 112.
SUFFICIENT.

The correct answer is B.
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by sdotgarcia » Mon Jun 23, 2014 6:18 pm
Thanks yet again Mitch!!

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by Brent@GMATPrepNow » Mon Jun 23, 2014 7:27 pm
I thought I'd point out that Mitch's "group grid" approach (aka Double Matrix Method)can be used for most questions featuring a population in which each member has two characteristics associated with it.
Here, we have a population of survey participants, and the two characteristics are:
- heard of brand A soda or not heard of brand A soda
- heard of brand B soda or not heard of brand B soda

This question type is VERY COMMON on the GMAT, so be sure to master the technique.

To learn more about the Double Matrix Method, watch our free video: https://www.gmatprepnow.com/module/gmat- ... ems?id=919

Once you're familiar with this technique, you can attempt these additional practice questions:

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Easy Data Sufficiency questions
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Medium Data Sufficiency questions
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Difficult Data Sufficiency questions
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