Hey, guys
Just wanted to add to the conceptual "exactly / at least / at most" discussion.
We have five possibilities for the number of women chosen to be in a group of 4 people: 0, 1, 2, 3, 4.
The first question asks for exactly 1, so we can just calculate the probability for that option. We want 1 woman AND not 1 woman AND not 1 woman AND not 1 woman. Note that "AND" means multiply in probabilities. (See 800guy's post for the actual calculations.)
The second question asks for at least one woman. That means we want either 1 woman OR 2 women OR 3 women OR 4 women. (Note that "OR" means add in probabilities.) It's really time-consuming to calculate 4 possibilities and add them together, so we look for a shortcut. All of the probabilities must add to 1 (to cover 100% of the scenarios), and we're asked to find four out of five. So, instead, let's just find the fifth possibility (zero women) and subtract that from 1. Much faster and - even more importantly - less work to do means fewer chances to make mistakes.
The third question asks us for at most one woman, which means either 0 women OR 1 woman. Here, we actually do have to calculate the two possibilities and add them together, because the alternative - calculate the other 3 possibilities and subract them from 1 - is not a shortcut. Note that this set up rarely appears on the GMAT, primarily because there is no real shortcut here. For most of the harder math questions, there is some sort of a shortcut and part of the eventual score differentiation is whether you know it or can figure it out quickly.
Last edited by
Stacey Koprince on Mon Jan 08, 2007 4:21 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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