Word Problem from GMAT Prep Practice Test

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I took a practice test and can't seem to figure out why I got this wrong. Can anyone help me to solve this?
A population of 132,000 is divided into 11 districts. If no district can have a population that is more than 10% greater than any other district, what is the minimum possible population that the least populated district can have?
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by GMATGuruNY » Sat Feb 09, 2013 4:07 pm
A certain city with a population of 132,000 is to be divided into 11 voting districts, and no district is to have a population that is more than 10 percent greater than the population of any other district. What is the minimum possible population that the least populated district could have?

(A) 10,700

(B) 10,800

(C) 10,900

(D) 11,000

(E) 11,100
We can plug in the answer choices, which represent the minimum possible population.

To MINIMIZE the smallest population, we need to MAXIMIZE the other 10 populations.
Thus, each of the other 10 districts must have the maximum allowed population: 10% greater than the smallest population.
Since the total population of the city is 132,000 -- a multiple of 1,000 -- the correct answer choice is almost certainly a multiple of 1,000.

Answer choice D: 11,000.
Each of the other 10 districts = (132,000 - 11,000)/10 = 12,100.
Difference between the populations = 12,100 - 11,000 = 1100, which is 10% of the smallest population.
Success!

The correct answer is D.

Algebraically:
Let x = the population of the least populated district.
As noted above, to MINIMIZE the smallest population, we need to MAXIMIZE the other 10 populations.
Thus, each of the other 10 districts must have the maximum allowed population:
10% greater than the smallest population = 1.1x.
Thus, the sum of the populations in the other 10 districts = 10(1.1x) = 11x.
Since the sum of ALL the populations is equal to 132,000, we get:
x + 11x = 132,000
12x = 132,000
x = 11,000.
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