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A certain bag contains only red balls, blue balls, and green

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jadon
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A certain bag contains only red balls, blue balls, and green [#permalink] New post   27 Jul 2014, 16:24
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A certain bag contains only red balls, blue balls, and green balls. What percent of all the balls in the bag are red?

(1) The ratio of the number of red balls to the number of blue balls in the bag is 1:3.

(2) There are 2 green balls in the bag.
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Bunuel
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A certain bag contains only red balls, blue balls, and green [#permalink] New post   27 Jul 2014, 16:31
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A certain bag contains only red balls, blue balls, and green balls. What percent of all the balls in the bag are red?

(1) The ratio of the number of red balls to the number of blue balls in the bag is 1:3. Clearly insufficient.

(2) There are 2 green balls in the bag. Clearly insufficient.

(1)+(2) We only know that there are 2 green balls and that the ratio of red to blue is 1 to 3 (1 and 3, 2 and 6, 3 and 9, ...). For different numbers of red and blue balls the required percent will be different. Not sufficient.

Answer: E.
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ganand
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Re: A certain bag contains only red balls, blue balls, and green [#permalink] New post   31 Dec 2016, 01:43
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Grid wrote:
Bunuel wrote:
A certain bag contains only red balls, blue balls, and green balls. What percent of all the balls in the bag are red?

(1) The ration of the number of red balls to the number of blue balls in the bag is 1:3. Clearly insufficient.

(2) There are 2 green balls in the bag. Clearly insufficient.

(1)+(2) We only know that there are 2 green balls and that the ratio of red to blue is 1 to 3 (1 and 3, 2 and 6, 3 and 9, ...). For different numbers of red and blue balls the required percent will be different. Not sufficient.

Answer: E.


hello Bunnel, looks like you are wrong. I chose the same answer as you but the gmat software says the answer choice is (C) Both statements are suffisent together but neither alone.
here is how I guessed the software is right: we have the ratios of Blue / Green and Blue / Red
2 / 1 and 3 / 1
we can deduct from those ratios the ratio of Green and Red.
What are your thoughts?


Hi Grid,

I think for this question answer should E. We can illustrate this with an example.
It's clear that individually none of the statement is sufficient.
By combining statement (1) and (2) we have following:
The ratio of the number of red balls to the number of blue balls = 1:3, and the number of green balls = 2.

Case1: Red balls = 1, Blue balls = 3, and Green balls = 2

Percentage of red balls in the bag = 1/6 * 100 = 16.66 %

Case2: Red balls = 2, Blue balls = 6, and Grenn balls = 2

Percentage of red balls in the bag = 2/10 * 100 = 20 %

Hence, there is no unique answer.

Thanks.
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Re: A certain bag contains only red balls, blue balls, and green [#permalink] New post   02 Jun 2018, 04:06
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Ans is E

Statement 1 guves ratio info.no absolute value info.
Statement 2 gives absolute value info but only about the green ball.

We dont have total no of balls even after combining both th st.
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Re: A certain bag contains only red balls, blue balls, and green [#permalink] New post   14 Jun 2020, 08:20
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Let the number of red, blue, and green balls be r, b, and g respectively.

We need [r][/r + b + g]

1) r = 3b

So we can substitute this as

[3b][/3b + b + g]

We can't get rid of variables.

2) g = 2

So we can substitute this as

[r][/r + b + 2]

We can't get rid of variables

1) and 2)

We have

[3b][/3b + b + 2]

We can't solve further. We could have solved this is the number of green balls (g) was given in terms of b.

Hope this helps.
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Re: A certain bag contains only red balls, blue balls, and green [#permalink] New post   30 Dec 2016, 19:39
Bunuel wrote:
A certain bag contains only red balls, blue balls, and green balls. What percent of all the balls in the bag are red?

(1) The ration of the number of red balls to the number of blue balls in the bag is 1:3. Clearly insufficient.

(2) There are 2 green balls in the bag. Clearly insufficient.

(1)+(2) We only know that there are 2 green balls and that the ratio of red to blue is 1 to 3 (1 and 3, 2 and 6, 3 and 9, ...). For different numbers of red and blue balls the required percent will be different. Not sufficient.

Answer: E.


hello Bunnel, looks like you are wrong. I chose the same answer as you but the gmat software says the answer choice is (C) Both statements are suffisent together but neither alone.
here is how I guessed the software is right: we have the ratios of Blue / Green and Blue / Red
2 / 1 and 3 / 1
we can deduct from those ratios the ratio of Green and Red.
What are your thoughts?
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dylanl1218
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Re: A certain bag contains only red balls, blue balls, and green [#permalink] New post   18 Jul 2021, 15:23
jadon wrote:
A certain bag contains only red balls, blue balls, and green balls. What percent of all the balls in the bag are red?

(1) The ratio of the number of red balls to the number of blue balls in the bag is 1:3.

(2) There are 2 green balls in the bag.


Stem Analysis:

We need to find the value of R/(R+B+G)

Statement 1:
We can represent the red and blue balls as follows: R = 1x, and B = 3x. So then x/(4x+G), so (1/4 + X/G). Without the value of X and G we don't have sufficient information to answer the question.

Statement 2:
Clearly insufficient alone


Statement 1 and 2:
Utilizing (1) and (2) we can creation an equation in the form of 1/4 + X/2, but without the value of X both statements together are insufficient to answer the question.
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Re: A certain bag contains only red balls, blue balls, and green [#permalink] New post   07 Jan 2024, 05:31
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Re: A certain bag contains only red balls, blue balls, and green [#permalink]
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