AAPL wrote:GMAT Prep
Professor Vasquez gave a quiz to two classes. Was the range of scores for the first class equal to the range of scores for the second class?
1) In each class, the number of students taking the quiz was 26, and the lowest score in each class was 70.
2) In each class, the average (arithmetic mean) score on the quiz was 85.
OA E
Target question: Was the range of scores for the first class equal to the range of scores for the second class?
Neither statement alone seems sufficient, so let's jump straight to....
Statements 1 and 2 combined
There are several scenarios that satisfy BOTH statements. Here are two:
Case a:
First class scores: {70, 85, 85, 85, 85, 85, 85, 85, 85, 85, 85, 85, 85, 85, 85, 85, 85, 85, 85, 85, 85, 85, 85, 85, 85, 100}
Second class scores: {70, 85, 85, 85, 85, 85, 85, 85, 85, 85, 85, 85, 85, 85, 85, 85, 85, 85, 85, 85, 85, 85, 85, 85, 85, 100}
In this case,
the range for the first class EQUALS the range for the second class
Case b:
First class scores: {70, 85, 85, 85, 85, 85, 85, 85, 85, 85, 85, 85, 85, 85, 85, 85, 85, 85, 85, 85, 85, 85, 85, 85,
85, 100}
Second class scores: {70, 85, 85, 85, 85, 85, 85, 85, 85, 85, 85, 85, 85, 85, 85, 85, 85, 85, 85, 85, 85, 85, 85, 85,
86, 99}
In this case,
the range for the first class is GREATER THAN the range for the second class
Since we cannot answer the
target question with certainty, the combined statements are NOT SUFFICIENT
Aside: notice that for case b, I took the last two values (
85 and 100) in the first class and replaced them with
86 and 99 for the second class. Since both pairs of numbers have the same sum, this ensured that the class average remained 85.
Answer: E
Cheers,
Brent
