hey_thr67 wrote:A candy wholesaler needs to quickly sell some candy bars that are nearing their expiration date, so he reduced the price of the candy bars. By what percent did he reduce the price of the candy bars?

(1) The price of a candy bar was reduced by 36 cents.

(2) If a candy retailer purchases a case of 144 candy bars from the wholesaler, she will save $51.84 as a result of the price reduction.


OA is E

Not able to decode what statement 1 means. Complicated language.

Hi:

The problem asks us the find percentage reduction in the price of one candy bar. That means we need to find two things, the original and the final price of one candy bar.

Let A be the original price and B be the final price. Then the percentage reduction will be 100*(A-B)/A. So we need to find both B and A.

Let's look at the statements.

1. This tells us that to get rid of the candy, the wholesaler decreased the price of the candy bar by 36 cents. Which means we know that A-B=36 cents. Since we don't know what A is, this is insufficient.

2. We are told that if some retailer buys 144 candy bars from the wholesaler, the retailer will save $51.84. In other words 144*(A-B) = 5184 cents , which gives us A-B = 36 cents. This is the same information as above, and we still don't know what A is. Hence B is insufficient. At this point, since A and B are essentially the same statement, and they are insufficient, taken together, the information is insufficient as well. Hence E.

Let me know if this helps

For questions such as these it is important to think about what information would solve the problem and then determine if the statements provide the information.

the question asks for percent change in the candy bar price - percent change is obtained by dividing the actual difference by the original price - so you need the difference and the original price.

1) does not give any information about original price so it cannot be the answer.

2) again, it gives you info about the discount price but doing the actual math would be a waste of time if you can't get all of your pieces. This statement will never tell you the original price, just the discount so it cannot be sufficient.

Together both statements are missing the information about original price so the answer must be E.

It might be foolish to say but till this moment, I didn't get that it is "cent" and not "percent". In the exam, at-times it is hard to concentrate and nervousness can make any easy question hard.Even at the time of posting, I had was confidant that it is percent and didn't bother to check it again. A lesson hard learned.

This habit of careful reading will pay you dividends not only in CR and DS but overall when you join any corporation after the MBA. Sometimes I think, GMAT is all about Reading comprehension.
After all, great managers are careful yet fast readers.