Jessica has a limited investment portfolio of stocks and bon

What is important for you to understand is that there are two variables and each option gives relation between those two variables.
The relation are not overlapping so together should suffice for solution.

Thanx a lot for the replies guys, however, i am still having a bit of problem with understanding the statement. Below is how i am interpretting the statement :-

however According to the question Jessica has half her stocks currently i.e. S/2

So evaluating first statement i inferred that
(1) If she were to buy six more stocks, she would have twice as many stocks as bonds

S/2 + 6 = 2S = B

and if i go by the above equation then i dont need the second equation as a can figure out both the values from here.

Can you please help me figure out what am i missing here? I always seem to get stuck up on wordings with "as" involving two or more variables.

Please help.

From B = 2S(though this is not what the question says, S+6 = 2B), how you could figure out both the values ?

B = 4, S = 2
B = 8, S = 4
B = 10, S = 5
and so on...

All of them satisfy the condition, B = 2S. By solution, it means you should solve unique values for B and S.

You need two relationships between B and S, so that you can find the common value satisfying both the conditions.

Please check the below site:

https://tutorial.math.lamar.edu/Classes/ ... Vrble.aspx

No your interpretation is not correct.

Currently: she has S stocks and B bonds, total S+B.
Question: IF she sells half her stocks, how many stocks and bonds will she be left with, so we need to determine the value of S/2+B.


Jessica has a limited investment portfolio of stocks and bonds. If she sells half her stocks, how many stocks and bonds will she be left with?

Question: S/2 + B = ?

(1) says: (S + 6) = 2B, which is not sufficient to get the value of S/2 + B.

(2) says 3B = 2S - 3, which is not sufficient to get the value of S/2 + B.

(1)+(2) We have two linear equations ((S + 6) = 2B and 3B = 2S - 3) with two unknowns, thus we can solve and get the value of S/2 + B. Sufficient.

Answer: C.

Hi Bunuel,

Thanx for the reply, i guess i was just reading a lot into the question. It was pretty direct nevertheles, I get it now.

Thanx a lot for the help anyways.

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