make a certain bow

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sanju09: GMAT Instructor; Posts: 3650; Joined: Wed Jan 21, 2009 4:27 am; Location: India; Thanked: 267 times; Followed by:80 members; GMAT Score:760

make a certain bow

by sanju09 » Thu May 13, 2010 5:27 am

Exactly Â½ yard of ribbon is needed to make a certain bow. Which of the following lengths of ribbon (in yard) could be used to make the bow with the least amount remaining?
(A) 1/3
(B) 2/5
(C) 3/5
(D) 2/3
(E) Â¾

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Source: Beat The GMAT — Problem Solving | Thu May 13, 2010 5:27 am

GauravMalhotra: Junior | Next Rank: 30 Posts; Posts: 14; Joined: Fri May 07, 2010 3:54 am; Thanked: 1 times; GMAT Score:690

by GauravMalhotra » Thu May 13, 2010 11:05 am

Answer is 'C' - 3/5 - 0.6... that;s the only one with least amount of wastage.

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Stuart@KaplanGMAT: GMAT Instructor; Posts: 3225; Joined: Tue Jan 08, 2008 2:40 pm; Location: Toronto; Thanked: 1710 times; Followed by:614 members; GMAT Score:800

by Stuart@KaplanGMAT » Thu May 13, 2010 11:29 am

sanju09 wrote:Exactly Â½ yard of ribbon is needed to make a certain bow. Which of the following lengths of ribbon (in yard) could be used to make the bow with the least amount remaining?
(A) 1/3
(B) 2/5
(C) 3/5
(D) 2/3
(E) Â¾

Like a lot of GMAT word problems, once you've translated the math is simple; so the key is quick and accurate translation.

We want the least amount of wasted ribbon, so here's what the question is really asking:

"Which of the following fractions is the smallest amount bigger than 1/2?"

So, we want to take (answer choice) - 1/2 and get the smallest possible positive answer.

We can quickly eliminate A and B, since those are both less than 1/2.

For C, D and E, we can either get a common denominator to make them easy to compare or convert to decimals. It's very useful to know the basic faction/decimal equivalencies for test day.

1/5 = .2
1/4 = .25
1/3 = .333

so:

(C) 3/5 = 3 * .2 = .6
(D) 2/3 = 2 * .333 = .666
(E) 3/4 = 3 * .25 = .75

(C) is our winner!