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Buying brooms question

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by divanshuex » Mon Jun 06, 2011 6:32 am
Sue purchased several brooms at Gigamart. If Sue paid a total of $78.30, including 8 percent sales tax, for all of the brooms, what is the price of 1 broom, EXCLUDING sales tax?

(1) The sales tax on each broom was $1.16

(2) Sue bought 5 brooms at Gigamart.

Should the answer not be a because we don't know if all the brooms are the same price?
Is it okay to assume!
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Source: — Data Sufficiency |
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by cans » Mon Jun 06, 2011 6:44 am
let cost of 1 broom excluding sales tax=x
thus cost of 1 broom including sales tax = 1.08x
#of brooms bought=n
total cost=1.08xn = 78.30 ->7830=xn*108
xn=145/2 ---eqn1
a)sales tax=1.16 or .08x=1.16 we can find x.
Sufficient
b) n=5
from eqn1, w know n, thus x can be found.
sufficient
IMO D
Assumption: same price of all brooms
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by jainnikhil02 » Mon Jun 06, 2011 7:29 am
IMO D..

we cant assume that all the broom's are of different prize unless and untill it is mentioned.
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by Tani » Mon Jun 06, 2011 9:52 am
The second statement is insufficient. If the brooms are different prices we have no idea how much a given broom coasts, but since the first statement tells us they each have the same tax, we know that they have the same price.
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by cans » Mon Jun 06, 2011 5:05 pm
whats the OA??
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by Whitney Garner » Mon Jun 06, 2011 6:36 pm
Tani Wolff - Kaplan wrote:The second statement is insufficient. If the brooms are different prices we have no idea how much a given broom coasts, but since the first statement tells us they each have the same tax, we know that they have the same price.
I'd actually love to know the source for this one. It is extraordinarily rare for the GMAT to NOT specify whether the brooms are identical (ie - same price).

:)
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by Tani » Mon Jun 06, 2011 6:39 pm
I suspect they are testing to see whether you realize that by having the same tax the brooms must be the same price. Of course that assumes the tax rate is equal on all brooms.
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by aftableo2006 » Mon Jun 06, 2011 9:08 pm
the correct answer is D the price of each broom is the same they are not differently priced
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by Tani » Tue Jun 07, 2011 8:43 am
You do not know and cannot assume all brooms are priced the same. In reality you can buy an inexpensive whisk broom or an expensive push broom - very different prices.
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by Whitney Garner » Tue Jun 07, 2011 8:51 am
Tani Wolff - Kaplan wrote:You do not know and cannot assume all brooms are priced the same. In reality you can buy an inexpensive whisk broom or an expensive push broom - very different prices.
Agreed for the real world - BUT in the world of the GMAT I have never seen a case where this was not explicit (are they the same, are they different??). This type of "gotcha" problem is not a typical trap employed by the question writers, ie. they do not hinge the solution on the possibility that you forget that there are different types of brooms in the world.

Again, I would love for the OP to list the source.

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by kruthika » Wed Jun 08, 2011 12:33 am
What is the IMO?
I go for D assuming same price for all brooms.
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