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Students at college C

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Students at college C

by subhashghosh » Mon May 30, 2011 7:11 am
If 2/5 of the students at college C are business majors, what is the number of female students at college C?
(1) 2/5 of the male students at college C are business majors
(2) 200 of the female students are college C are business majors.

OA - C

I have a doubt here, can someone please clarify the same for me ?

Let # of male s= M

and # of females = F

So given that :

Male business majors + Female business majors = 2/5*Total = 2/5(M+F)

(1) is insufficient

But in case of (2), its given that

Female Business Majors = 200

So shouldn't we simply equate 2/5 * F = 200 from what's given in question, and then :

=> F = 500

and Answer = B.

Why should we consider # of M here from (1) ?
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by manpsingh87 » Mon May 30, 2011 7:22 am
subhashghosh wrote:If 2/5 of the students at college C are business majors, what is the number of female students at college C?
(1) 2/5 of the male students at college C are business majors
(2) 200 of the female students are college C are business majors.

OA - C

I have a doubt here, can someone please clarify the same for me ?

Let # of male s= M

and # of females = F

So given that :

Male business majors + Female business majors = 2/5*Total = 2/5(M+F)

(1) is insufficient
perfect till here..!!!
But in case of (2), its given that

Female Business Majors = 200

So shouldn't we simply equate 2/5 * F = 200 from what's given in question, and then :

=> F = 500

and Answer = B.
this is where the problem lies you're implying the information given in option 1 to the option 2 which is incorrect..!!! because as per 2 we don't have any information about the percentage distribution of M and F who are doing majors..!! hence 2 alone is insufficient.!!!
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by Frankenstein » Mon May 30, 2011 7:27 am
Hi,
2/5 of the students at college C are business majors means if there are 1000 students there are 400 business majors. It doesn't mean 2/5 of the males and 2/5 females are business majors.
For example : if # of males = 300 and females is 700, the total no.of majors is fixed(400), it could be any combination of males and females adding up to 400. Hence, we need the number of males as well to find out females.

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by subhashghosh » Mon May 30, 2011 7:30 pm
@Frankenstein

I agree with your explanation, however, my query is that:

It's given that - 2M/5 + 2F/5 = Total Business Majors

And Total Business Majors = Male Business Majors + Female Business Majors

=> 2M/5 + 2F/5 = Male Business Majors + Female Business Majors

So shouldn't 2F/5 = Female Business Majors (Regardless of what's given in (1) ) ?

Now from (2) we can have :

2M/5 + 2F/5 = 200 + Male Business Majors

So you're saying We can't equate 2F/5 to 200 as such?

Why is that so ?
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by Frankenstein » Mon May 30, 2011 8:53 pm
subhashghosh wrote:@Frankenstein

I agree with your explanation, however, my query is that:

It's given that - 2M/5 + 2F/5 = Total Business Majors

And Total Business Majors = Male Business Majors + Female Business Majors

=> 2M/5 + 2F/5 = Male Business Majors + Female Business Majors

So shouldn't 2F/5 = Female Business Majors (Regardless of what's given in (1) ) ?

Now from (2) we can have :

2M/5 + 2F/5 = 200 + Male Business Majors

So you're saying We can't equate 2F/5 to 200 as such?

Why is that so ?
Hi,
He is just telling the number of majors to be 2/5 of the number of students. It doesn't mean male majors are 2/5 of male students and female majors are 2/5 of female students proportionally. If there are 1000 students(400males+600 females). Total no. of majors according to the ques is (2/5).1000 = 400 and this 400 can be any valid combination of no. of males and females. It need not necessarily be 160males and 240 females. It could be 200 males and 200 females as well. Yes, we cannot equate 2F/5 to 200.

Cheers!
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