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Fractions

by houd » Fri Jun 20, 2014 5:18 am
Hi experts,

I've just started to work on the GMAT, i'm following "beat the gmat in 60days"s program..it's quite hard, but at least it guides me...

Here it is my problem:

At a loading dick , each worker on the night crew loaded 3/4 as many boxes as each worker on the day crew. If the night crew has 4/5 as many workers as the day crew, what fraction of all boxes loaded by the 2 crews did the day crew load?
A- 1/2 B-2/5 C-3/5 D-4/5 E-5/8
Solution
From this, the workers on the night crew will load 3/4*4/5=3/5 as many bowes as the day crew.
The total loaded by both the day and night crews is thus 1+3/5=5/5+3/5=8/5 of the day crew's work.
Therefore, the fraction of all the bowes loaded by the 2 crews hat was done by the day crew was 1/8/5 =1 *5/8=5/8

I don't understand the second part of the solution why 1+3/5? Do you have any idea please?

Thanks

Houda
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by Mathsbuddy » Mon Jun 23, 2014 6:26 am
Many of the GMat questions require careful reading.
Does "3/4 as many" mean just "3/4 of" or "3/4 more = 1 and 3/4"?
Similarly for "3/5 as many"?

I find such wording difficult to decypher as different cultures and countries can have different interpretations due to language subtleties.

My wife often talks of "twice fewer". She means "half", but technically is improper English.

I truly don't know what this question is asking, as the wording is not clear in my eyes.
Does this help at all?
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by [email protected] » Mon Jun 23, 2014 11:52 am
Hi houd,

In answer to your original question, the prompt asks us to figure out the following fraction:

(Day Crew Boxes Loaded)/(ALL Boxes Loaded)

You determined that the Night Crew loaded 3/5 as many boxes as the Day Crew, so if the Night Crew = 3/5, then the Day Crew = 5/5 = 1.

The TOTAL boxes loaded by both crews is 3/5 + 1 = 8/5.
-----------------------------

This is actually a perfect question to use TEST VALUES.

We're told that each night crew worker loaded 3/4 as many boxes as each day crew worker:

Let's TEST VALUES:
1 day crew worker = 4 boxes loaded
1 night crew worker = 3 boxes loaded

The night crew has 4/5 as many workers as the day crew:

Day crew = 5 workers
Night crew = 4 workers

So, we have....
Day crew: 5 workers who load 4 boxes each = 20 boxes loaded
Night crew: 4 workers who load 3 boxes each = 12 boxes loaded

The question asks, what fraction of ALL BOXES did the DAY CREW LOAD:

20/32 = 5/8

Final Answer: E
Contact Rich at [email protected]
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by GMATinsight » Mon Jun 23, 2014 8:44 pm
The simplest explanation:

If One Day worker's work = D
and One Night worker's work = N

Then, N = (3/4) D

If number of day worker = 5
then Nomber of Night workers = (4/5) * 5 = 4


The total work done by Day workers = 5D
The total work done by Night workers = 4N = 4 * (3/4)d = 3D

Fraction of Day worker's work as part of total work = 5D / (5D+3D) = 5/8 ANSWER
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by houd » Sat Jun 28, 2014 3:28 am
Thank you guys.
Indeed, the second explanation is easier. Thanks GMATinsight.
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