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election

by Ozlemg » Thu Aug 04, 2011 5:34 am
In an election how many votes are cast.
1. the winning candidate gets 54% of the total votes
2. the winning candidate wins by 800

Why is not it to solve as I did below:

Winning Can. : x+100
Rest of the Candidates : x

(x+100) / x = 54% ...??

[spoiler]OA : E[/spoiler]
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by kmittal82 » Thu Aug 04, 2011 5:48 am
Ought to be (C) I think

Let total number of votes cast = x

(1) Winning candidate (w) got 0.54x votes (w = 0.54x), not enough to find x

(2) x = Winning candidate votes (w) + losing candidate votes (l)
w - l = 800
w + l = x
2w = 800 + x
Not enough to find x

Combine (1) and (2), we are able to deduce x
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by Frankenstein » Thu Aug 04, 2011 6:11 am
Hi,
I am not sure what exactly we need to consider.
Winning candidate gets 54% of the total votes -> total votes = total votes cast or just the number of eligible voters?
If we assume 54% of the votes cast, are there only 2 candidates in the contest? I don't know if we can make any assumptions.
Can you post the source of this question.
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by kmittal82 » Thu Aug 04, 2011 6:17 am
Frankenstein wrote:Hi,
I am not sure what exactly we need to consider.
Winning candidate gets 54% of the total votes -> total votes = total votes cast or just the number of eligible voters?
If we assume 54% of the votes cast, are there only 2 candidates in the contest? I don't know if we can make any assumptions.
Can you post the source of this question.
Interesting, the question indeed doesn't say how many candidates were there in this election. Having said that, I think it should be "safe" to assume that every vote cast is eligible.
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by Frankenstein » Thu Aug 04, 2011 6:24 am
kmittal82 wrote: Interesting, the question indeed doesn't say how many candidates were there in this election. Having said that, I think it should be "safe" to assume that every vote cast is eligible.
Hi,
I didn't mean some of the votes were ineligible. What I meant was different:
If there are 100K voters and only 70K voters voted, does total votes(statement 1) mean 100K or 70K. But, I guess we may assume it to be 70K.
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by Ozlemg » Thu Aug 04, 2011 7:24 am
Frankenstein wrote:Hi,
I am not sure what exactly we need to consider.
Winning candidate gets 54% of the total votes -> total votes = total votes cast or just the number of eligible voters?
If we assume 54% of the votes cast, are there only 2 candidates in the contest? I don't know if we can make any assumptions.
Can you post the source of this question.
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Last edited by Ozlemg on Thu Aug 04, 2011 7:54 am, edited 1 time in total.
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by gmatboost » Thu Aug 04, 2011 7:41 am
I agree with Frankenstein, this question is very poorly worded and leaves ambiguity that the GMAT would never leave. I would be careful about using questions from this source.
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