urshohini wrote:Hi Mitch,
I'm not very clear with this.
The solution below presumes that statement 1 refers to Thursday the 19th.
How did you assume this? Aren't we NOT supposed to assume anything in DS questions?
Since the price on Sunday the 15th = 700, and the price INCREASES every day, a price of $746 implies a date AFTER the 15th. Since no date is specified, Statement 1 must be referring to the first Thursday after Sunday the 15th. If statement 1 were referring to a later Thursday, a specific date would have been specified.
Sum of the increases = number * average = 6 * 12.5 = 75.
I didn't understand this. How ru getting 12.5 here?
Is there any other way to solve this problem? Pl explain.
Here again is the beginning of my explanation for Statement 1:
Statement 1: The price on Thursday was $746.
Since Thursday = 746 and Sunday = 700, the sum of the increases between Sunday and Thursday = 46.
Median increase for the first 4 days = sum/number = 46/4 = 11.5.
Thus, the increase on Tuesday = $11 and the increase on Wednesday = $12.
Thus, the increases Monday through Saturday comprise the consecutive integers 10 through 15.
The increases Monday through Saturday = 10,11,12,13,14,15.
Given evenly spaced integers:
Average = median = (biggest+smallest)/2 = (10+15)/2 = 12.5.
Sum = number of integers * average = 6 * 12.5 = 75.
Thus, the price on Saturday = 700+75 = 775.
Truth be told, no math is needed for this problem.
Having recognized that the increases will comprise a set of CONSECUTIVE INTEGERS, we should realize when we evaluate statement 1 that only ONE PARTICULAR SET of 4 consecutive integers will yield a sum of 46.
Thus, statement 1 offers sufficient information to determine by how much the price will increase every day, enabling us to determine the price on Saturday the 21st.
The same reasoning can be applied to statement 2: only ONE PARTICULAR SET of 6 consecutive integers will yield a sum of 81.
Thus, like statement 1, statement 2 offers sufficient information to determine by how much the price will increase every day, enabling us to determine the price on Saturday the 21st.
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