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Arithmetic

by John fran kennedi » Sat Mar 12, 2016 7:50 pm

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Guys , I was really shocked when I knew that the right answer was B, because I did think that that would NOT have been B.
I thought so , because since there are 3 shirts and the most expensive price > $30, whereas the least expensive price > $ 20. So the other price(the middle price) would be greater than the least price and less than the highest price . That's why I think that the answer would have been C to the determine whether the sum exceed $60 or not.


Here is the question

80. Did the sum of the prices of three shirts exceed $60?
1. The price of the most expensive of the shirts exceeded $30
2. The price of the least expensive of the shirts exceeded $20

Guys, please help me understand this. Thanks in advance
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Source: — Data Sufficiency |
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by GMATGuruNY » Sat Mar 12, 2016 8:20 pm

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John fran kennedi wrote:Did the sum of the prices of three shirts exceed $60?
1. The price of the most expensive of the shirts exceeded $30
2. The price of the least expensive of the shirts exceeded $20
Statement 1:
It's possible that the 3 prices are $31, $30 and $30, for a total of $91.
In this case, the sum is GREATER THAN $60, so the answer to the question stem is YES.
It's possible that the 3 prices are $31, $1 and $1, for a total of $33.
In this case, the sum is LESS THAN $60, so the answer to the question stem is NO.
Since the answer is YES in the first case but NO in the second case, INSUFFICIENT.

Statement 2:
Since the price of the LEAST expensive shirt is greater than $20, the prices of the two MOST expensive shirts must also be greater than $20.
Thus, the sum of the 3 prices = (more than $20) + (more than $20) + (more than $20) = more than $60, implying that the answer to the question stem is YES.
SUFFICIENT.

The correct answer is B.
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by John fran kennedi » Sat Mar 12, 2016 9:19 pm

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Thank you so much.
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Re: Arithmetic

by Brent@GMATPrepNow » Thu Nov 12, 2020 4:19 pm

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John fran kennedi wrote: ↑
Sat Mar 12, 2016 7:50 pm
 . Did the sum of the prices of three shirts exceed $60?
1. The price of the most expensive of the shirts exceeded $30
2. The price of the least expensive of the shirts exceeded $20
Kudos for a correct solution.[/quote]

Target question: Did the sum of the prices of three shirts exceed $60?

Statement 1: The price of the most expensive of the shirts exceeded $30
This statement doesn't FEEL sufficient, so I'll TEST some values.
Case a: the shirt prices are $31, $32 and $33, in which case the sum of the 3 prices EXCEEDS $60
Case b: the shirt prices are $11, $12 and $33, in which case the sum of the 3 prices DOES NOT exceed $60
Since we cannot answer the target question with certainty, statement 1 is NOT SUFFICIENT

Aside: For more on this idea of plugging in values when a statement doesn't feel sufficient, you can read my article: https://www.gmatprepnow.com/articles/dat ... lug-values

Statement 2: The price of the least expensive of the shirts exceeded $20
If the least expensive shirt costs 20+ dollars, then the other 2 shirts also cost 20+ dollars each
(20+ dollars) + (20+ dollars) + (20+ dollars) = 60+ dollars
So, we can conclude that the sum of the 3 prices EXCEEDS $60
Since we can answer the target question with certainty, statement 2 is SUFFICIENT

Answer = B

Cheers,
Brent
Brent Hanneson - Creator of GMATPrepNow.com
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