carllecat wrote:The current ratio of boys to girls at a certain school is 2 to 5. If 12 additional boys were added to the school, the new ratio of boys to girls would be 4 to 9. How many boys currently attend the school?
A) 27
B) 48
C) 54
D) 72
E) 108
I do not exactly know where to start. Any shortcuts?
Thanks,
Let's set up our ratios:
B/G = 2/5
and
(B+12)/G = 4/9
we have 2 equations and 2 unknowns, we can solve.
Cross multiplying the first equation, we get:
5B = 2G
5B/2 = G
Cross multiplying the second equation, we get:
9B + 108 = 4G
Subbing the value for G into the second equation:
9B + 108 = 4(5B/2)
9B + 108 = 10B
108 = 10B - 9B
108 = B
done!
Quick (and of course accurate) manipulation of equations is an incredibly important skill for the GMAT. Setting up the equations is the "thinking" part of the question, but the mechanical manipulation is something you need to be able to get through very quickly so you have more thinking time on future questions.
Note that we could have also approached this question by backsolving (working backward from the answer choices), but because of the multiple ratios it would likely have been more time consuming than the algebraic approach.
Also note that even if we're completely stumped we can eliminate (a); boys make up 2 parts of the ratio and, since people are indivisible (i.e. there will always be an integer number of boys and girls), we need an even number of boys to ensure an integer number of girls.
