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

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by AAPL » Fri Mar 23, 2018 5:49 am
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!
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by Brent@GMATPrepNow » Fri Mar 23, 2018 7:05 am
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
Brent Hanneson - Creator of GMATPrepNow.com
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by [email protected] » Fri Mar 23, 2018 12:41 pm
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

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Rich
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by Jeff@TargetTestPrep » Mon Mar 26, 2018 4:45 pm
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
We can let the number of eaten apples = n and create the equation:

1.4n = 70

n = 50

Answer: B

Jeffrey Miller
Head of GMAT Instruction
[email protected]

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