Pete has some apples. He sold 40% more than he ate...

AAPL wrote:Pete has some apples. He sold 40% more than he ate. If he sold 70 apples, how many did he eat?

A. 90
B. 50
C. 42
D. 28
E. 6

The OA is B.

To solve this PS question, we can write an equation as,
$$1.4x=70\Rightarrow \ x=\frac{70}{1.4}=50$$
Is there another approach to solve this question? For example, testing the answer choices. Can any experts help, please? Thanks!

Your approach is perfect!

Once we know that x = 70/1.4, we have a few ways to evaluate this. Here's one way....
x = 70/1.4
= 700/14 (I multiplied top and bottom by 10 to eliminate the decimal)
= 100/2 (I divided top and bottom by 7)
= 50

Cheers,
Brent

Hi AAPL,

We're told that Pete sold 40% more apples than he ate and that he sold 70 apples. We're asked for the number of apples that he ate. This question can be solved in a number of different ways, including by TESTing THE ANSWERS.

Since Pete sold 40% MORE apples than he ate - and that was 70 apples sold - the number that he ate has to be MORE than half of 70 (since IF he ate 35 apples, then the number sold would be 100% more than what he ate). Thus, the correct answer is either A, B or C. Let's TEST Answer B.

Answer B: 50 apples
IF... Pete ate 50 apples, then 40% of 50 = (.4)(50) = 20 apples
50 + 20 = 70 apples sold, which is an exact match for what we were told, so this MUST be the answer.

Final Answer: B

GMAT assassins aren't born, they're made,
Rich