Three business partners owned 100% of a certain company.

Three business partners owned 100% of a certain company. When they sold the company, one partner received exactly 5/8 of the proceeds of the sale and the other partners shared the remainder of the proceeds. How much money did the partner who received the smallest amount of the proceeds receive from the sale?

(1) The partner who received the smallest amount from the sale received exactly 1/5 the amount received by the partner who received the second largest amount.

(2) The partner who received the second largest amount from the sale received half of the two million dollars received by the partner who received the largest amount.


Can someone explain an efficient way to deal with such questions.

This is what I did:

You have been asked "how much money?" a value Question
1. To obtain a $ (or cents or any units) value you need to see that value in options [quickly browse - option B so answer has to be B, C or E]
2. Now read B more closely.
2.a 2nd largest = (1/2) of the Largest (2 million) [we know relation between 1st and 2nd]
2.b largest = 2million [we know relation between largest and total -given in question]
3.one of the three partner got 5/8th of share [certainly he is got the largest as remaining is 3/8 < 5/8 ]
4. So now: we know total, we know largest, we know 2nd largest , so only unknown[3rd largest=smallest] can be found - Sufficient.


hope this helps

great explanation for me . Thanks.

the two partners got \(\frac{3}{8}\).

1) amount nor mentioned. INSUFFICIENT

2) partner#2 got \(\frac{1}{2}\) of partner#1. So \(\frac{5}{16}\) of the total.

\(\frac{5}{16}\) of total = 1 million

\(total = \frac{16*1million}{5}\)

partner#3 got \(\frac{1}{16}\) . SUFFICIENT.

Answer: B

HTH

I almost got in the process to solve the problem..but later realized that it is a DS question...

1st one received 5x/8
other two - 3x/8.

1 - nothing about any dollar amount - insufficient.
2 - ok, so first one received 2 mln (that is 5x/8), second one received 1 mln.
knowing 5x/8 - we can find x. (3,200,000).
first one received 2 mln, second one 1 mln, last one 200k.

sufficient.

Solution:

St(1)-The partner who received the smallest amount from the sale received exactly 1/5 the amount received by the partner who received the second largest amount.

No information about the total amount is provided but only the ratios. (Insufficient)

St(2)-The partner who received the second largest amount from the sale received half of the two million dollars received by the partner who received the largest amount.

Let A received 5/8 th of the total while B and C received the remaining.

=>A=2 mn which is 5/8th of the total and hence the total money involved = 16/5 million

B received 1 million (half of 2mn) and C received 16/5 - (2+1) => (Sufficient)
(option b)

Devmitra Sen
GMAT SME

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