In a stack of boards at a lumber yard, the 20th board

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BTGmoderatorRO: Moderator; Posts: 772; Joined: Wed Aug 30, 2017 6:29 pmFollowed by: 6 members

by BTGmoderatorRO » Wed Mar 28, 2018 9:42 pm

In a stack of boards at a lumber yard, the 20th board counting from the top of the stack is immediately below the 16th board counting from the bottom of the stack. How many boards are in the stack?

A. 38
B. 36
C. 35
D. 34
E. 32
OA is d
I'm confused by this PS question. Any suggestion on how to go about it? Thanks in advance.

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Source: Beat The GMAT — Problem Solving | Wed Mar 28, 2018 9:42 pm

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Brent@GMATPrepNow: GMAT Instructor; Posts: 16207; Joined: Mon Dec 08, 2008 6:26 pmFollowed by: 1268 members; Location: Vancouver, BC; Thanked: 5254 times; GMAT Score:770

by Brent@GMATPrepNow » Thu Mar 29, 2018 6:30 am

Roland2rule wrote:In a stack of boards at a lumber yard, the 20th board counting from the top of the stack is immediately below the 16th board counting from the bottom of the stack. How many boards are in the stack?

A. 38
B. 36
C. 35
D. 34
E. 32
OA is d
I'm confused by this PS question. Any suggestion on how to go about it? Thanks in advance.

Let's start from the bottom and work our way up:

We'll start with the 16th board counting from the bottom of the stack

Right BELOW that 16th board, we have a board that we'll call Larry.
So, Larry is the 15th board counting from the bottom of the stack.
So, starting from the bottom and working our way up to Larry, we have 15 boards so far.

Larry is the 20th board counting from the TOP of the stack
In other words, there are 19 boards ABOVE Larry.
So, including those 19 boards, we now have 34 boards in TOTAL.

Answer: D

Cheers,
Brent

Brent Hanneson - Creator of GMATPrepNow.com

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Scott@TargetTestPrep: GMAT Instructor; Posts: 8137; Joined: Sat Apr 25, 2015 10:56 amFollowed by: 29 members; Location: Los Angeles, CA; Thanked: 43 times

by Scott@TargetTestPrep » Fri Mar 30, 2018 11:13 am

BTGmoderatorRO wrote:In a stack of boards at a lumber yard, the 20th board counting from the top of the stack is immediately below the 16th board counting from the bottom of the stack. How many boards are in the stack?

A. 38
B. 36
C. 35
D. 34
E. 32

If the 20th board counting from the top of the stack is immediately below the 16th board counting from the bottom of the stack, then the 19th board counting from the top of the stack is exactly the 16th board counting from the bottom of the stack. In other words, there are 18 boards above the 16th board counting from the bottom of the stack. Thus, there are 18 + 16 = 34 boards in the stack.

Answer: D

Scott Woodbury-Stewart
Founder and CEO
[email protected]

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