Cracking the GMAT bin 2 DS question

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Cracking the GMAT bin 2 DS question

by inertia2010 » Mon Mar 28, 2011 8:46 pm
Please help with this question. I could not understand the explanation given in the book.

A comedian is playing two shows at a certain comedy club, and twice as many tickets have been issued for the evening show as for the afternoon show. Of the total number of tickets issued for both shows, what percentage has been sold?

(1) A total of 450 tickets have been issued for both shows.
(2) Exactly 3/5 of the tickets issued for the afternoon show have been sold, and exactly 1/5 of the tickets issued for the evening show have been sold.

The answer given in the book is B.
Source: — Data Sufficiency |

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by manpsingh87 » Mon Mar 28, 2011 8:57 pm
inertia2010 wrote:Please help with this question. I could not understand the explanation given in the book.

A comedian is playing two shows at a certain comedy club, and twice as many tickets have been issued for the evening show as for the afternoon show. Of the total number of tickets issued for both shows, what percentage has been sold?

(1) A total of 450 tickets have been issued for both shows.
(2) Exactly 3/5 of the tickets issued for the afternoon show have been sold, and exactly 1/5 of the tickets issued for the evening show have been sold.

The answer given in the book is B.
let the ticket issued in the afternoon show be x, therefore ticket issued in the evening show would be 2x

therefore total tickets issued=3x;

1) total issued tickets is equal to 450, i.e. 3x=450; x=150, but the question is asking about the percentage that has been sold.!! since we don't know what percentage of morning and evening show tickets are sold therefore 1 alone is not sufficient to answer the question.

2) (3/5)x+(1/5)2x = x;

therefore tickets sold are x, hence percentage of ticket sold are (x/3x)*100 = 33.33% hence 2) alone is sufficient to answer the question hence B
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by GMATGuruNY » Tue Mar 29, 2011 5:28 am
inertia2010 wrote:Please help with this question. I could not understand the explanation given in the book.

A comedian is playing two shows at a certain comedy club, and twice as many tickets have been issued for the evening show as for the afternoon show. Of the total number of tickets issued for both shows, what percentage has been sold?

(1) A total of 450 tickets have been issued for both shows.
(2) Exactly 3/5 of the tickets issued for the afternoon show have been sold, and exactly 1/5 of the tickets issued for the evening show have been sold.

The answer given in the book is B.
Statement 1: 450 tickets issued.
No way to determine the percentage sold.
Insufficient.

Statement 2: 3/5 of the afternoon tickets sold, 1/5 of the evening tickets sold.
Since the question asks not for an exact value but only for a percentage -- and there are no fixed values given -- we can plug in our own numbers.
Let evening tickets issued = 10, afternoon tickets issued = 5.
Total issued = 10+5 = 15.
Evening tickets sold = 1/5 * 10 = 2.
Afternoon tickets sold = 3/5 * 5 = 3.
Total sold = 2+3 = 5.
Percentage sold = 5/15 * 100 = 33.34%.
Sufficient.

The correct answer is B.
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