With DS, it's important to ask: "what is the MINIMUM piece of information that would be sufficient to answer the question?"
If the question is "what is 11% of x," we would need to know the value of x to solve. Thus, knowing the value of x would be sufficient.
Rephrased question: what is the value of x?
(1) 3/8 of x is 24
Don't do the math here! Just think - can we get a value for x? Yes! We could create a simple equation and solve: x = (8/3)(24). Don't even calculate - this must be sufficient.
(2) 5% of x is 3.2
The same idea holds true here. Don't do the math - we can see that we're going to get one - and only one - value for x. Sufficient.
The answer is D.
Ceilidh Erickson
EdM in Mind, Brain, and Education
Harvard Graduate School of Education
