IMO E.

Box office receipts for independent movies for the first half of this year have increased by 20 percent over the total receipts for independent movies for all of last year. Last year, 50 independent movies were released, while so far this year only 20 independent movies have been released. The number of independent movies slated for release in the second half of this year is roughly equal to the number released so far.

If the statements above are true, which of the following must be true?

1. The total box office receipts for independent movies this year will be significantly more than 20 percent greater than the receipts for independent movies last year. No, since we don't know how the second half of the year sales would be.

2.The number of independent movies released in the first half of this year is equal to the number released in the first half of last year. No, since there is nothing given about the breakdown of sales last year.

3.The price of a movie ticket has not increased since last year. No, nothing given about price.

4.The average revenues of the independent films released during the first half of this year is greater than that of all independent films released last year. No, nothing about revenue either. Cannot assume that. Although I was torn between D and E.

5.The number of people seeing independent movies during the first half of this year is greater than the number who saw independent movies last year. This seems like the best option.

My pick is D

Box office receipts = revenue

Its stated that Box office receipts in the first half of this year 20 % than total Box office receipts in the complete last year
number of movies released in first half = 20 < total number of movies released last year (= 50)

Hence average revenues of the independent films released during the first half of this year is greater than that of all independent films released last year

OA D.

But i could not understand how can we calculate revenue.

We only know that No of receipts were sold more..

We dont know cost of one ticket...may be in current year ticket cost less...

whats your take

debmalya_dutta wrote:My pick is D

Box office receipts = revenue

Its stated that Box office receipts in the first half of this year 20 % than total Box office receipts in the complete last year
number of movies released in first half = 20 < total number of movies released last year (= 50)

Hence average revenues of the independent films released during the first half of this year is greater than that of all independent films released last year

Makes sense, BUT in this case arent we assuming the price to be consistent in both years in order to calculate the revenues. I was stuck between D and E too, but didnt choose D for this reason.

For those of us living in the US (and in California in particular) it's pretty common to equate "box office receipts" with "revenue", so the answer is pretty clearly D. "Receipts" in its purest form, I guess, means "amount received", and in our newspapers and TV reports about entertainment business they use the term "box office receipt" with dollars to mean revenue.

This is a pretty interesting question - from what I've heard about the experimental questions on the GMAT their job is to eliminate cultural biases like this one, so this is probably a good example of one that would get flagged, rewritten, or removed.

Do you know from where this question came? I wonder how often the GMAT runs into little subtleties like this.