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03 Jan 2013, 06:26
SravnaTestPrep wrote:
If the total income of a family per month is $6000 and the median income is$2000, how many members are there in the family?

A. 2
B. 3
C. 4
D. 5
E. 6

As it is given that the middle value or median is $2000, hence two cases are possible: i) When there are even number of members. In such case, answer choices A, C and E are being considered. Since for sets consisting of even number of elements, the mean of middle two values is the mean. Hence ATLEAST these two values must sum to$4000. The largest value has to be atleast $2000 and the lowest value has to be atmost$2000. Thus sum would be more than $6000. Hence C and E are eliminated. For answer choice A, where there are 2 elements, the mean of these two elements must be$2000 or sum is $4000. Eliminate A too. Answer choice B is the only possible answer, in which either all the three elements are the same or the largest is more than$2000 and the smallest is less than $2000. In case of E, the sum would become more than$6000.
+1B
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Re: If the total income of a family per month is $6000 [#permalink] Show Tags 03 Jan 2013, 09:22 5 This post received KUDOS Expert's post SravnaTestPrep wrote: If the total income of a family per month is$6000 and the median income is $2000, how many members are there in the family? A. 2 B. 3 C. 4 D. 5 E. 6 One good thing about PS questions - you know only one option will satisfy the conditions i.e. there will be only one answer. Total Income - 6000 Median - 2000 Assume number of people is 2. Median = Avg salary of the two people. Since total income is 6000, the avg will be 3000 hence number of people cannot be 2. Now assume number of people is 3. We can easily see that if each person makes$2000, the total will be $6000 and median will be$2000. This fits our question. Hence answer has to be (B).

We don't need to check any other options.

Note: The question should have mentioned that every family member earns. Otherwise no of people can be 4 or 5 too.
0, 2000, 2000, 2000
0, 0, 2000, 2000, 2000
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03 Jan 2013, 13:10
if 2000 is the median and 6000 is your total you know right away that you have an odd number of family members - eliminate A,C and E.
furthermore, there is no way you could have 5 members with a median of 2000.
there are several ways you could have distributed the money with 3 family members;
1000,2000,3000
2000,2000,2000
Senior Manager
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03 Jan 2013, 19:32
1
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Expert's post
SravnaTestPrep wrote:
VeritasPrepKarishma wrote:
SravnaTestPrep wrote:
If the total income of a family per month is $6000 and the median income is$2000, how many members are there in the family?

A. 2
B. 3
C. 4
D. 5
E. 6

Note: The question should have mentioned that every family member earns. Otherwise no of people can be 4 or 5 too.
0, 2000, 2000, 2000
0, 0, 2000, 2000, 2000

Hi,

Actually the value can not only be 0 but also be negative too, say, if one the members is engaged in a business and incurs loss.

But does not income mean earnings? For example replace "income" with "earnings". So in this case, you are talking of earnings of the members of the family and it would not be incorrect to assume that all the members do earn. So I think only in the case when any member does not earn you need to state that explicitly.

Here is my opinion on this issue:

The question only states: how many members are there in the family?

Say, there is a family with 3 adults and 2 kids - there are 5 members in the family - but this info is not given to us.

Given information:
All three adults earn $2000 each Total income of the family members => 6000 Median income of the family members => 2000 So given this information, how many family members will you say there are? 3 or 5? Do we count the kids as family members or not? All I want to say is that if this were a DS question, I would not have said that there can be only 3 family members. There could be non-earning family members. The only reason I will go with 3 is because it is a PS question so I make the assumption that I need to. _________________ Karishma Veritas Prep | GMAT Instructor My Blog Get started with Veritas Prep GMAT On Demand for$199

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21 Aug 2014, 00:27
Just removed the zero's from the numbers

Total income = 6

Median = 2

1 .......... 2 ............. 3 >>>>> Total = 6

No other combination possible

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Re: If the total income of a family per month is $6000 [#permalink] Show Tags 13 Nov 2015, 21:40 Hello from the GMAT Club BumpBot! Thanks to another GMAT Club member, I have just discovered this valuable topic, yet it had no discussion for over a year. I am now bumping it up - doing my job. I think you may find it valuable (esp those replies with Kudos). Want to see all other topics I dig out? Follow me (click follow button on profile). You will receive a summary of all topics I bump in your profile area as well as via email. _________________ Re: If the total income of a family per month is$6000   [#permalink] 13 Nov 2015, 21:40
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