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Am I mistaken on this one???

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Am I mistaken on this one???

by NeilWatson » Sun Feb 23, 2014 4:51 pm
I saw this question in a text book and recognized it to be pretty easy, but the books explanation is completely different from what I thought.

Bradley owns b video games. If Bradley's total is 1/3 the total owned by Andrew and 4 times the total owned by Charlie, how many video games do the 3 of them have in terms of b?
My Answer:

Bradley - b
Andrew - 3b
Charlie - b/4

b+3b+b/4 = 5b/4

Or am I completely missing something here?
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by Brent@GMATPrepNow » Sun Feb 23, 2014 7:55 pm
NeilWatson wrote:I saw this question in a text book and recognized it to be pretty easy, but the books explanation is completely different from what I thought.

Bradley owns b video games. If Bradley's total is 1/3 the total owned by Andrew and 4 times the total owned by Charlie, how many video games do the 3 of them have in terms of b?
My Answer:

Bradley - b
Andrew - 3b
Charlie - b/4

b+3b+b/4 = 5b/4

Or am I completely missing something here?
Everything is perfect up until you get to: b +3b + b/4 = 5b/4
Let's take it from b + 3b + b/4
This is the same as: b/1 + 3b/1 + b/4
Rewrite with a common denominator of 4 to get: 4b/4 + 12b/4 + b/4
Combine to get: [spoiler]17b/4[/spoiler]

Cheers,
Brent
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by theCodeToGMAT » Sun Feb 23, 2014 8:22 pm
Bradley = b
Andrew = a
Charlie = c

b = 1/3 * a
b = 4 * c

a + b + c
(3b) + b + (b/4)
(12b + 4b + b)/4
17b/4
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by GMATGuruNY » Sun Feb 23, 2014 11:37 pm
When you post a problem, please include the answer choices.
Bradley owns b video game cartridges. If Bradley's total is one-third the total
owned by Andrew and four times the total owned by Charlie, how many video
game cartirdges do the three of them own altogether, in terms of b?

(16/3)b
(17/4)b
(13/4)b
(19/12)b
(7/12)b
Let a = 12.
Then b = (1/3)*12 = 4.
Since Bradley owns 4 times the number owned by Charlie, c = 1.
Total = 12+4+1 = 17. This is our target.

Now plug b=4 into the answers to see which yields our target of 17.

Only answer choice B works:
(17/4)*4 = 17.

The correct answer is B.
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by NeilWatson » Mon Feb 24, 2014 9:01 am
AH ok perfect. Thanks guys.
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by Abhishek009 » Mon Feb 24, 2014 9:13 am
NeilWatson wrote:Bradley owns b video games. If Bradley's total is 1/3 the total owned by Andrew and 4 times the total owned by Charlie
Plug in some values ,


Bradley own 12 Video Games

So Andrew Owns 36 Video Games

So Charles Owns 3 Video Games

Total Number of Video Games Own by the three of them is 51 ( 12 + 36 + 3 )Video Games
NeilWatson wrote:how many video games do the 3 of them have in terms of b?
Video games owned by the three of them in terms of b is 51 / 12 => 17/4


Hence answer will be 17/4
Abhishek
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