Official Guide Explanation:
Data Sufficiency #7

 

 

Background

This is just one of hundreds of free explanations I've created to the quantitative questions in The Official Guide for GMAT Quantitative Review (2nd 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: 7
Page: 153
Difficulty: 4 (Moderately Easy)
Category 1: Algebra > Linear Equations-Two Unk >

Explanation: Statement (1) is not sufficient. We don't know how many salespeople there are; if we call the number of salespeople s and the number of cars to be sold c, we can come up with the equation:

c = 4s + 23

Without the value of s, we can't find the value of c.

Statement (2) is also insufficient. It gives us a similar equation:

c = 6s + 5

Again, two variables is too much to handle with one equation.

Taken together, the statements are sufficient. We have two linear equations with two variables--enough to solve for the value of c. Choice (C) is correct.

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