Official Guide Explanation:
Data Sufficiency #111

 

 

Background

This is just one of hundreds of free explanations I've created to the quantitative questions in The Official Guide for GMAT Review (12th ed.). Click the links on the question number, difficulty level, and categories to find explanations for other problems.

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Solution and Metadata

Question: 111
Page: 282
Difficulty: 6 (Moderately Difficult)
Category 1: Arithmetic > Ratio and Proportion >
Category 2: Word Problems > Other >

Explanation: Statement (1) is insufficient. We're looking for a number of employees. A ratio isn't going to help us here. There could be 20, 30, and 40 of the office supplies, or 20,000, 30,000, and 40,000. This statment gives us no clue as to the number of supplies or employees.

Statement (2) is also insufficient. While it tells us the number of each type of supply, we don't know how many of each that each employee receives, so we don't know how many employees there are.

Taken together, the statements are still insufficient. If each employee received 2, 3, and 4 of each type of supply, that means there are 9 employees. If each employee received 6, 9, and 12 of each type instead, there are 3 employees. Choice (E) is correct.

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