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by ronnie1985 » Fri Feb 03, 2012 7:04 am
In a college election 300 valid votes were cast and 2 candidates stood for the election V1 and V2. Who won the election?
S1. Among the voters who voted for V2 and cast valid votes, 79% were males and 43% were females.
S2. Ratio of male to female in college 2:1

Official answer is (A)

Explain.
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Source: — Data Sufficiency |

by GMATGuruNY » Fri Feb 03, 2012 8:16 am
ronnie1985 wrote:In a college election, 300 valid votes were cast, and each valid vote was cast either for V1 or for V2. Who won the election?

S1. Among the voters who cast valid votes, 79% of the males and 43% of the females voted for V2.
S2. The ratio of males to females in the college is 2:1.

Official answer is (A)

Explain.
The problem -- in particular, statement 1 -- was transcribed incorrectly. I've corrected the problem so that it conveys the intended meaning.

Statement 1: Among the voters who cast valid votes, 79% of the males and 43% of the females voted for V2.
The number of males who voted for V2 must be an integer.
79 is prime.
Thus, the total number of males who cast valid votes must be a multiple of 100; otherwise, the number of males who voted for V2 (79%) will not be an integer.

Case 1: 100 total male votes, 200 total female votes
Votes for V2 = .79(100) + .(43)200 = 165.
Since V2 receives more than half of the 300 votes, V2 wins.

Case 2: 200 total male votes, 100 total female votes
Votes for V2 = .79(200) + .(43)100 = 201.
Since V2 receives more than half of the 300 votes, V2 wins.

Since in each case V2 wins, SUFFICIENT.

Statement 2: The ratio of males to females in the college is 2:1.
No way to determine how many votes were cast for each candidate.
INSUFFICIENT.

The correct answer is A.
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by ronnie1985 » Fri Feb 03, 2012 9:44 am
Thank you i just missed that 79 is a prime and voters must be natural numbers.
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by [email protected] » Sun Feb 19, 2012 2:36 am
Superb approximation used by you GMATguru!!! Thanks for a wonderful explanation...
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