magical cook wrote: ↑Tue Aug 28, 2007 10:33 am
A merchant discounted the sale price of a coat and the sale price of a sweater. Which of
the two articles of clothing was discounted by the greater dollar amount?
(1) The percent discount on the coat was 2 percentage points greater than the
percent discount on the sweater.
(2) Before the discounts, the sale price of the coat was $10 less than the sale price of
the sweater.
Solution:
Question Stem Analysis:
We need to determine which of the two articles of clothing, the coat or the sweater, was discounted by the greater dollar amount.
Statement One Alone:
Statement one alone is not sufficient to answer the question since it depends on the original prices of the coat and sweater. If they had the same price originally, then the coat would have a greater dollar amount discount. However, if the sweater had a higher price than the coat, the sweater could have a greater dollar amount discount. For example, if the coat was $30 originally and the discount was 10%, the coat was discounted by $3. However, if the sweater was $40 originally and the discount was 8%, the sweater was discounted by $3.20.
Statement Two Alone:
Statement two alone is not sufficient to answer the question since it depends on the percentages of discount of the coat and sweater. If they had the same percentage, then the sweater would have a greater dollar amount discount. However, if the coat had a higher percentage discount than the sweater, the coat could have a greater dollar amount discount. For example, if the sweater was $100 originally and the discount was 8%, the sweater was discounted by $8. However, if the coat was $90 originally and the discount was 10%, the coat was discounted by $9.
Statements One and Two Alone:
Even with the two statements, there is still not enough information to answer the question since we can use the same examples that we used in statements one and two. In statement one, we see that given that the original price sweater was $10 more than that of the coat, and the percent discount of the coat is 2% more than that of the sweater, so the sweater had a greater dollar amount discount ($3.20 vs. $3). However, in statement two, given the same conditions, the coat had a greater dollar amount discount ($9 vs. $8).
Answer: E 
