At the beginning of last month, a stationery store had in stock 250 wr

Question

At the beginning of last month, a stationery store had in stock 250 writing pads, which had cost the store $0.75 each. During the same month, the store made only one purchase of writing pads. What was the total amount spent by the store on the writing pads it had in stock at the end of the month?

(1) Last month the store purchased 150 writing pads for $0.80 each.
(2) Last month the total revenue from the sale of writing pads was $180

Show Answer

Official Answer

E

(1) Last month the store purchased 150 writing pads for $0.80 each. 
(2) Last month the total revenue from the sale of writing pads was $180

Bunuel · Accepted Answer

In this case assuming that there was no sales would be an assumption, not vise-versa. Also, notice that the second statement talks about the revenue from the sale, so we know that there was in fact a sale of some number of pads.

Below is my solution for this question. Hope it helps.

At the beginning of last month, a stationery store had in stock 250 writing pads, which had cost the store $0.75 each. During the same month, the store made only one purchase of writing pads. What was the total amount spent by the store on the writing pads it had in stock at the end of the month?

(1) Last month the store purchased 150 writing pads for $0.80 each.
(2) Last month the total revenue from the sale of writing pads was $180

Show Answer

Official Answer

E

We are asked to determine the cost of goods in the end of the month.

(1) Last month the store purchased 150 writing pads for $ 0.80 each --> cost of goods at the beginning of the month=0.75*250, plus 150*0.8 store purchased during the month, BUT as long as we don't know how many pads store sold last month we cannot determine the number of pads left at the end of the month. Not sufficient.

(2) Last month the total revenue from the sales of the writing pads was $180. Well this is clearly insufficient. Was any number purchased during the month? What was the selling price of a pad? Not sufficient.

(1)+(2) We know how many and at what price was purchased during the month, plus we are told the revenue was 180, but we don't know the selling price of one pad, thus cannot determine how many was sold and how many left.

Answer: E.

Bunuel · Answer

It is known that the pads in stock at the beginning of the month cost the store 250 x $0.75, but the cost of the additional pads purchased is not known. In addition, the number of pads sold and their cost is not known.

Since statement (1) gives no information about the number and cost of the pads sold, it is not sufficient, and the answer must be B, C, or E.

Statement (2) alone is not sufficient since it does not provide any of the information needed. Thus, the answer must be C or E.

Statements (1) and (2) together still do not provide sufficient information, since the number of pads sold and their cost cannot be determined.

The best answer is E.

ankushbassi · Answer

Bunuel,
Do we need to consider the number of sold copies?
Number of sold copies is not given in question and sounds like an assumption.Can you please help when to consider an information,which is relevant but not provided in the question.

Konstantin1983 · Answer

Tricky one. Yes we need to actual number of pads to sold to count total value of items left on stock

cmatyrau · Answer

It is similar to the accounting concept of LIFO vs FIFO

ScottTargetTestPrep · Answer

Solution:

To know the total amount spent by the store on the writing pads it had in stock at the end of the last month, we need to know all 3 of the following criteria:

1) The number of writing pads bought in the only purchase in the last month and the cost per writing pad (assuming the cost of the writing pads is not fixed),

2) The number of writing pads sold from the original inventory, and

3) The number of writing pads sold from the only purchase.

Statement One Only:

Last month the store purchased 150 writing pads for $0.80 each.

This gives us the information of one of the three criteria (the first one), but it doesn’t give us the other two criteria. Statement one alone is not sufficient.

Statement Two Only:

Last month the total revenue from the sale of writing pads was $180.

Since the $180 revenue could be made all from the writing pads from the original inventory, OR all from the writing pads from the only purchase, OR a combination of the two. We neither know the number of writing pads sold from the original inventory nor from the only purchase. This does not give us any of the three criteria we need. Statement two alone is not sufficient.

Statements One and Two Together:

With the two statements together, we still don’t know the last two criteria; thus, the two statements together are still not sufficient to answer the question.

Answer: E

OjhaShishir · Answer

This seriously looks like a big assumption to me:(.

Nothing about "sold" is stated or even hinted at, in the question.

The question says: "What was the total amount spent by the store on the writing pads it had in stock at the end of the month?"

From this I thought that the question is asking: How much purchase of writing pads did the store do last month?

ScottTargetTestPrep · Answer

You can change "The number of writing pads sold from the original inventory" into "The number of writing pads from the original inventory left at the end of the month" but in any case, we need to know the number of writing pads for which the store paid $0.75 each if we are to answer the question. If the cost of the writing pads that were already in the inventory and the cost of the writing pads that the store bought later was the same, we would be able to combine item 2 and 3 into "The total number of writing pads sold"; but since the costs are different, we need to know or we need to have enough information to calculate the number of writing pads in each group.

nazmul2016 · Answer

Need to know the exact  number of writing pads as well as the cost per pad  remained at the end of the month. No statement provides that. Even if the number of units sold is given without providing the information of which type ( $0.75 or $0.80) of pads were sold, the answer would be E.
Answer: E

SiffyB · Answer

Bunuel   ScottTargetTestPrep  
Upon combining the two statements, we know that: 250 copies were bought by the store for $0.75 and 150 were bought for $0.80. Also, the total revenue from the sale of some copies is $180, so can we not say that the total amount spent on buying the unsold books is:
= (0.75*250) + (0.80*150) - 180
= 307.5 - 180
= $ 127.5

Please tell me where I'm going wrong.

yashikaaggarwal · Answer

The question is asking the total amount spent by the store on the writing pads it had in stock at the end of the month.

We know that at the beginning of last month, a stationery store had in stock 250 writing pads, which had cost the store $0.75 each. And
During the same month, the store made only one purchase of writing pads.

Statement 1 is saying that the store purchased 150 writing pads for $0.80 each last month which is the only purchased made as mentioned above.

Why can't it be the total amount spent by the shopkeeper during the last month. Expenditure is purchase amount. Right?
Kindly revert

Posted from my mobile device

SiffyB · Answer

Hi!

The questions asks us to find the total amount spent by the store on the writing pads it had  in stock at the end of the month.  Maybe you didn't consider the fact that during that month, the store must have also sold some of those writing pads. If so, we have to subtract the cost of those writings pads sold to determine the total cost price of left over writing pads.

Hope I made that clear.

yashikaaggarwal · Answer

Got it now. Thank You

ScottTargetTestPrep · Answer

Reply:

As a matter of fact, that is exactly the trap the question is hoping you would fall into. If the store was charging every writing pad the exact same amount that they paid for it (in other words, if the store was making zero profit on each writing pad), that approach would work. However, as there's no such information about that being the case in the question, we cannot use that approach.

Here's a simple argument to show you why your reasoning is wrong: Assume that the store made such a large profit on the writing pads that the total revenue came out to be $1000 instead of $180 (unlikely, but not impossible). Is the total amount spent on buying the unsold books 307.50 - 1000 = -692.50 dollars in this case?

CEdward · Answer

????

I have done countless questions and this falls into the bucket of the handful of questions that I simply didn't understand what the question was.

The question asks: What was the total amount spent by the store on the writing pads it had in stock at the end of the month?

I interpreted this as what is the total cost?

Statement 1 - 
Total cost = (250 x 0.75) + (150 x 0.80) = 187.50 + 120 = 307.50

Sufficient.

Statement 2 - 
Clearly insufficient.

Then, I read the responses and people interpreted this some different way.

At the beginning of last month, a stationery store had in stock 250 writing pads, which had cost the store $0.75 each. During the same month, the store made only one purchase of writing pads. What was the total amount spent by the store on the writing pads it had in stock at the end of the month?

(1) Last month the store purchased 150 writing pads for $0.80 each.
(2) Last month the total revenue from the sale of writing pads was $180

Show Answer

Official Answer

E

(1) Last month the store purchased 150 writing pads for $0.80 each.
(2) Last month the total revenue from the sale of writing pads was $180

Tanchat · Answer

I don't understand what does "What was the total amount spent by the store on the writing pads it had in stock at the end of the month?" mean..

Can any expert explain?

Thank you in advance

Konstantin1983 · Answer

This question asks about total sum spent on purchasing writing pads (i guess for future resale).

BrentGMATPrepNow · Answer

Given : At the beginning of last month, a stationery store had in stock 250 writing pads, which had cost the store $0.75 each. During the same month, the store made only one purchase of writing pads

Target question :    What was the total amount spent by the store on the writing pads it had in stock at the end of the month?

Statement 1 : Last month the store purchased 150 writing pads for $0.80 each.   
Since we have no information about the number of writing pads  purchased by the store's customers , there's no way to determine the number of writing pads the store had in stock at the end of the month. 
Statement 1 is NOT SUFFICIENT

Statement 2 : Last month the total revenue from the sale of writing pads was $180  
Here, we don't have any information about the number of writing pads the store purchased at some point during the month. 
So, there's no way to determine the number of writing pads the store had in stock at the end of the month. 
Statement 2 is NOT SUFFICIENT

Statements 1 and 2 combined    
The combined statements are still NOT SUFFICIENT. 
There are two big issues with statement 2. 
First, since we don't know the retail price of each pen, there's no way to determine the number of pens that customers purchased. 
For example, if the store charges $180 per pen, then only 1 pen was sold, which means there were 399 pens remaining at the end of the month. 
If the store charges $10 per pen, then 18 pens were sold, which means there were 382 pens remaining at the end of the month. 
And so on.

Second, even if we knew the exact price the store charges per pen, we still wouldn't have enough information, because we wouldn't know how many of the pens purchased were $0.75 pens and how many were $0.80 pens. 
For example, if the store charges $1.80 per pen, then the store sold 100 pen's last month, but we don't know the breakdown of $0.75 pens and $0.80 pens.

For the these two very big reasons, the answer is E

sacharya · Answer

Stmt 1)
Taking Feb month as an example
  Books inventory cost
Feb 1st 250 $0.75 
Feb 15th 150 $0.80 
Feb end 250+150-(books sold in Feb) No info

We don't know how many books were sold in Feb and how many were of 0.75$ and how many 0.8$
 Not sufficient

Stmt 2)

Total Revenue=SP*Number of books sold 
180=SP*Number of books sold 
We don't know how many books were sold in the month nor SP 
 Not sufficient

Combining 1 and 2
Still no information on number of books sold OR month end inventory and not sufficient

Not sufficient 
Ans E.

At the beginning of last month, a stationery store had in stock 250 wr

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GMAT Data Sufficiency (DS) Questions

At the beginning of last month, a stationery store had in stock 250 wr

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