Bunuel
12 Days of Christmas 2024 - 2025 Competition with $40,000 of PrizesA factory produced 12 shipments of bottles, with each shipment containing 15 bottles. If the average number of defective bottles per shipment was 1.5, did any shipment contain at least 4 defective bottles?
(1) One-third of the shipments had no defective items, and one-third of the shipments had exactly 1 defective item each.
(2) Two-thirds of the shipments had at most 1 defective item each.
GMAT Club's Official Explanation:
A factory produced 12 shipments of bottles, with each shipment containing 15 bottles. If the average number of defective bottles per shipment was 1.5, did any shipment contain at least 4 defective bottles?An average of 1.5 defective bottles per shipment for 12 shipments implies a total of 1.5 * 12 = 18 defective bottles.
(1) One-third of the shipments had no defective items, and one-third of the shipments had exactly 1 defective item each.
This means that 4 shipments had 0 defective items, and another 4 shipments had exactly 1 defective item each. Together, these 8 shipments accounted for 0 * 4 + 1 * 4 = 4 defective items, leaving 18 - 4 = 14 defective items to be distributed among the remaining 4 shipments.
Can each of these 4 shipments have fewer than 4 defective items? No, because if each shipment had fewer than 4 defective items, the maximum total would be 3 * 4 = 12, which is less than 14. Therefore, at least one of these 4 shipments must have at least 4 defective items. Sufficient.
(2) Two-thirds of the shipments had at most 1 defective item each.
This implies that 8 shipments had 1 or fewer defective items each. If those 8 shipments had exactly 1 defective item each, the remaining 4 shipments must account for 10 defective bottles.
We can distribute the 10 defective bottles across the 4 shipments in such a way that none of them has 4 or more defective bottles: for example, 2, 2, 3, 3. However, we can also distribute the 10 defective bottles such that one shipment does have at least 4 defective bottles: for example, 2, 2, 2, 4. Since we have two different outcomes, the information provided is not sufficient.
Answer: A.