Data Sufficiency

What is the number of female employees in Company X?

(1) If Company X were to hire 14 more people and all of these people were females, the ratio of the number of male employees to the number of female employees would then be 16 to 9

(2) Company X has 105 more male employees tan female employees

Hope this helps. My signature below has more info.



-Patrick

kobel51 wrote:What is the number of female employees in Company X?

(1) If Company X were to hire 14 more people and all of these people were females, the ratio of the number of male employees to the number of female employees would then be 16 to 9

(2) Company X has 105 more male employees tan female employees

Hi!

Without any doubt, the most powerful concept for data sufficiency is "number of equations vs number of unknowns". You can use that rule (and its exceptions) to solve many DS questions without doing much, if any, math.

Let's apply it to this particular question.

Step 1 of the Kaplan Method for DS: analyze the Q stem.

Here, we see "what", so we think "value question" - we need exactly 1 value for sufficiency. No hints provided at all, we're just asked to solve for a single variable.

Step 2 of the Kaplan Method for DS: evaluate the statements.

(1) we see "would be", which we know we can turn into an equals sign, so we can definitely create an equation out of this info. However, we've introduced another variable, "male employees". We have 1 equation and 2 unknowns: insufficient.

(2) "has" is another equals sign indicator, so again we can turn this into an equation. Same problem as (1): 2 variables, 1 equation... insufficient.

Since each statement alone is insufficient, we now consider them together.

Each statement provided an equation. A quick check shows that the 2 equations are distinct (i.e. different) and linear (no squares, cubes, etc...).

2 equations, 2 unknowns: sufficient! Choose (C), "together".

Here's the key takeaway for this and similar questions: DS isn't about calculation, it's about critical thinking. The better you understand the concepts that underlie GMAT math, the fewer actual math you need to do. The highest scorers get through most DS questions doing almost no calculations!