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For each home sold in County X, the buyer and the seller eac

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For each home sold in County X, the buyer and the seller eac

by Anaira Mitch » Fri Feb 10, 2017 10:23 am
For each home sold in County X, the buyer and the seller each must pay to County X a tax of 0.5 percent of the sale price of the home. Colleen recently sold her old home and bought a new home, both in County X. What was the total tax that Colleen paid to County X on these home sales?
(1) Colleen's old home had a sale price of $169,500.
(2) Colleen's new home had a sale price 20% greater than that of her old home.
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Source: — Data Sufficiency |

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by [email protected] » Fri Feb 10, 2017 10:30 am
Hi Anaira Mitch,

This DS question isn't about doing math so much as it is about understanding the logic involved (and whether you have enough information to properly answer the question).

We're told that a 0.5% tax is required from both the buyer and the seller of a house. We're told that Colleen sold a house and bought a different house. We're asked for the TOTAL tax that she paid on the two houses. To answer this question, we need to know what the prices of the two houses were.

1) Colleen's old home had a sale price of $169,500.

With this Fact, we could figure out the tax on the old home, but we know nothing about the price/tax of the new home.
Fact 1 is INSUFFICIENT

2) Colleen's new home had a sale price 20% greater than that of her old home.

This Fact tells us nothing about the two prices, so there's no way to determine the tax paid on either home.
Fact 2 is INSUFFICIENT

Combined, we know...
-the price of the old home ($169,500), so we can figure out 0.5% of that.
-the price of the new home is 20% greater than ($169,500), so we could figure out THAT price AND the 0.5% tax associated with it.

With the two taxes, we can add those two values and answer the given question.
Combined, SUFFICIENT

Final Answer: C

GMAT assassins aren't born, they're made,
Rich
Contact Rich at [email protected]
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by Anaira Mitch » Fri Feb 10, 2017 11:18 am
[email protected] wrote:Hi Anaira Mitch,

This DS question isn't about doing math so much as it is about understanding the logic involved (and whether you have enough information to properly answer the question).

We're told that a 0.5% tax is required from both the buyer and the seller of a house. We're told that Colleen sold a house and bought a different house. We're asked for the TOTAL tax that she paid on the two houses. To answer this question, we need to know what the prices of the two houses were.

1) Colleen's old home had a sale price of $169,500.

With this Fact, we could figure out the tax on the old home, but we know nothing about the price/tax of the new home.
Fact 1 is INSUFFICIENT

2) Colleen's new home had a sale price 20% greater than that of her old home.

This Fact tells us nothing about the two prices, so there's no way to determine the tax paid on either home.
Fact 2 is INSUFFICIENT

Combined, we know...
-the price of the old home ($169,500), so we can figure out 0.5% of that.
-the price of the new home is 20% greater than ($169,500), so we could figure out THAT price AND the 0.5% tax associated with it.

With the two taxes, we can add those two values and answer the given question.
Combined, SUFFICIENT

Final Answer: C

GMAT assassins aren't born, they're made,
Rich
Thanks Rich. It was helpful. I was confused with calculation of total tax on individual sale price of old and new homes or on total sale price of both homes. Now it's clear.
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by Jeff@TargetTestPrep » Wed Feb 15, 2017 3:12 pm
Anaira Mitch wrote:For each home sold in County X, the buyer and the seller each must pay to County X a tax of 0.5 percent of the sale price of the home. Colleen recently sold her old home and bought a new home, both in County X. What was the total tax that Colleen paid to County X on these home sales?

(1) Colleen's old home had a sale price of $169,500.
(2) Colleen's new home had a sale price 20% greater than that of her old home.
We are given that for each home sold in County X, the buyer and the seller each must pay to County X a tax of 0.5 percent of the sale price of the home. Colleen sold her home and bought a new one, and we must determine the total tax that she paid to County X from these sales.

Statement One Alone:

Colleen's old home had a sale price of $169,500.

Without having any information regarding the new home, statement one is not sufficient to answer the question.

Statement Two Alone:

Colleen's new home had a sale price 20% greater than that of her old home.

Since we cannot determine the price of the old home or the new home, statement two alone is not sufficient to answer the question.

Statements One and Two Together:

Using the information from statements one and two, we can determine the sale price of her new home:

1.2(169,500) = 203,400

Since we see that the price of the old home is $169,500 and the price of the new home is $203,400, we have enough information to determine how much tax Colleen paid.

Answer: C

Jeffrey Miller
Head of GMAT Instruction
[email protected]

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