Five percent of a certain grass seed is timothy. If the

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BTGmoderatorLU: Moderator; Posts: 2505; Joined: Sun Oct 15, 2017 1:50 pm; Followed by:6 members

Five percent of a certain grass seed is timothy. If the

by BTGmoderatorLU » Wed May 02, 2018 2:41 pm

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Five percent of a certain grass seed is timothy. If the amount of the mixture needed to plant one acre contains two pounds of timothy, how many acres can be planted with 240 pounds of the seed mixture?

A. 6
B. 12
C. 20
D. 24
E. 120

The OA is A.

I get the answer as follows,

5% of 240 pounds is timothy which is 12 pounds. 2 pounds timothy for 1-acre land. Thus, 12 pounds timothy will suffice for 6 acres. Then A the correct answer.

Please, can anyone explain another way to solve this PS question? Thanks!

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Source: Beat The GMAT — Problem Solving | Wed May 02, 2018 2:41 pm

GMAT/MBA Expert

Brent@GMATPrepNow: GMAT Instructor; Posts: 16207; Joined: Mon Dec 08, 2008 6:26 pm; Location: Vancouver, BC; Thanked: 5254 times; Followed by:1268 members; GMAT Score:770

by Brent@GMATPrepNow » Thu May 03, 2018 2:47 pm

BTGmoderatorLU wrote:Five percent of a certain grass seed is timothy. If the amount of the mixture needed to plant one acre contains two pounds of timothy, how many acres can be planted with 240 pounds of the seed mixture?

A. 6
B. 12
C. 20
D. 24
E. 120

We have 240 pounds of the seed mixture, and 5% of the mixture is timothy.
So: TOTAL weight of timothy = 5% of 240 pounds
= 12 pounds

So, we there are 12 pounds of timothy in the mixture, and 2 pounds of timothy is needed for 1 acre
This means 4 pounds of timothy is needed for 2 acres
And 6 pounds of timothy is needed for 3 acres
And 12 pounds of timothy is needed for 6 acres

Answer: A

Brent Hanneson - Creator of GMATPrepNow.com

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Jeff@TargetTestPrep: GMAT Instructor; Posts: 1462; Joined: Thu Apr 09, 2015 9:34 am; Location: New York, NY; Thanked: 39 times; Followed by:22 members

by Jeff@TargetTestPrep » Fri May 04, 2018 9:32 am

BTGmoderatorLU wrote:Five percent of a certain grass seed is timothy. If the amount of the mixture needed to plant one acre contains two pounds of timothy, how many acres can be planted with 240 pounds of the seed mixture?

A. 6
B. 12
C. 20
D. 24
E. 120

5% of the total seed mixture n contains 2 pounds of timothy, so we have:

0.05n = 2

n = 2/0.05 = 200/5 = 40 pounds of mixture

We can create a proportion in which a = the number of acres that can be planted with 240 pounds of the seed mixture:

40/1 = 240/a

40a = 240

a = 6

Alternate Solution:

We note that there are 240 x 5% = 240 x 0.05 = 12 pounds of timothy in 240 pounds of seed mixture. Since one acre needs to contain 2 pounds of timothy, we can plant 12/2 = 6 acres with 240 pounds of seed mixture.

Answer: A

Jeffrey Miller
Head of GMAT Instruction
[email protected]