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555-605 Level|   Geometry|                     
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Bunuel
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Can a certain rectangular sheet of glass be positioned on a 21 Sep 2020, 04:38
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uc26
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uc26


Hi Bunuel,

My question is what if the second statement provided information about the exact dimensions of the rectangular sheet of glass say “one side of the sheet of glass is 24 inches wide and 55 inches long”. Would the answer be C then? I feel it would still be E since we still don’t know whether the edges of the glass are parallel to the edges of the tabletop and none of the statements provide information about that.
Or is it that the rectangular piece of glass automatically means that the vertical edges are going to be 90 degrees and thus parallel to the tabletop? And hence the answer would be C.

Thanks,
Udit

The answer would be C. We'd be able to give a NO answer to the question. 24*55 sheet of glass cannot cover the entire tabletop which is 36*60.

C would be the answer too, if (2) were: The sheet of glass is 40 inches wide by 60 inches long. In this case, we COULD position the sheet of glass, so that it covers the entire tabletop and its edges are parallel to the edges of the tabletop. So, the answer to the question would be YES, we CAN position the sheet of glass, so that it covers the entire tabletop and its edges are parallel to the edges of the tabletop

Thanks Bunuel,
I understand your logic about the glass covering the table.
However, my doubt is related to whether the edges of the glass are parallel to the edges of the tabletop portion of the question stem. Since it is a rectangular sheet of glass, do we have to assume that all its verticle edges would be 90 degrees? Meaning a rectangular box or a rectangular sheet would by default have their edges parallel to a rectangular tabletop?

Thanks,
Udit
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I think you are misunderstanding the question. The question asks: CAN a certain rectangular sheet of glass be positioned ... (So, whether it is possible) 40 by 60 sheet of glass CAN be positioned the way we want.
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Can a certain rectangular sheet of glass be positioned on a 18 Mar 2021, 01:38
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Does anyone else find this question misleading? The 'can' in Can a certain rectangular sheet of glass be positioned makes it sound like the question is asking whether it's possible to shape a sheet to cover the table and be parallel to the edges with an area of 2,400 square inches. I picked C for this reason.
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Can a certain rectangular sheet of glass be positioned on a 18 Mar 2021, 16:54
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Hi blessthenoobs,

If the prompt had stated something similar to: "Can a rectangular piece of glass be created....", then I would agree with your interpretation (as that would imply that the piece of glass hasn't been formed yet). Here though, the reference to "a CERTAIN rectangular piece of glass..." implies that we're dealing with a 'fixed entity' (re: the sheet already exists, but we don't know its exact dimensions yet). Based on how the overall prompt is worded, we need to know the exact dimensions of both the glass sheet and the tabletop to answer it; in other versions of this question, we might be able to answer it without knowing the exact dimensions, as long as we knew something about the minimum or maximum possible dimensions.

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Can a certain rectangular sheet of glass be positioned on a 16 May 2022, 23:39
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JeffTargetTestPrep @avigordan BrentGMATPrepNow Bunuel EMPOWERgmatRichC what is the role of parallel her? No explanation here has clarified that? Can you tell me a case where the sides will not be parallel given the glass is a rectangle and given that it will cover the table top? EVen if it does not cover the table top, it can still be positioned parallel. And that is why which is the scenario wherein it CANNOT (ever) be positioned parallel given the above info?

IMO, it CAN ALWAYS be positioned parallel becaus eit is a rectangle and not parallelogram. EVen the diagram by Bunuel above is wrong
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Can a certain rectangular sheet of glass be positioned on a 17 May 2022, 20:41
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Hi Elite097,

It's possible that the original wording of the question has been tweaked over the years, but the detail of having the sides of the glass and the sides of the table must be parallel is ultimately irrelevant (as you can find the correct answer by TESTing VALUES). That having been said, the original author (when originally creating the question all those years ago) might have been trying to 'eliminate' the option that you could lay the glass diagonally over the table and still completely cover it.

For example, with a table that is 36 inches by 60 inches, if you place a piece of glass that is 59 inches by 59 inches - with the corresponding sides parallel - the glass will NOT completely cover the table (the glass would be just a little short along the 60-inch axis). However, if you rotate the glass a bit (meaning that the sides would NOT be parallel with the sides of the table), then the glass WOULD completely cover the table.

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Can a certain rectangular sheet of glass be positioned on a 19 May 2022, 22:31
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EMPOWERgmatRichC I get your point and now that I think about it , it actually will still not cver the table because the area of the glass will be smaller than the top right? Pls clarify. Even I had a mild affinity to your reasoning before I realised this. Hence also pls give an answer to my previous question in this context

For glass greater than table top, there will always be a way to position parallely so we are only concerned with when dimensions are small but in that case it will never cover table top so what is the utility of introducing 'should be parallel' in the question stem
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Can a certain rectangular sheet of glass be positioned on a 12 Jan 2024, 02:49
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krishna_sunder_
I don't understand something,
This is a DS question
so it mean's they are not asking weather the ans is yes/ no
but they are rather asking whether

a) it can be solved by first statement alone
b) it can be solved by second statement alone
c) both the statement are necessary, and one statement alone is not enough
d) the question is solvable by both the statement's individually
e) cannot be solved

that way shouldn't the answer be C

Ik that isn't the answer and i am going wrong somewhere. Can someone pl. guide me where i am going wrong.
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There are two types of data sufficiency questions:

1. YES/NO DS Questions:

In Yes/No Data Sufficiency questions, a statement is sufficient if the answer is always "yes" or always "no", whereas a statement is insufficient if the answer can be "sometimes yes" and "sometimes no".

2. VALUE DS QUESTIONS:

When a DS question asks about the value of some variable, then the statement is sufficient ONLY if you can obtain a single numerical value for this variable.

The question at hand belongs to the first category. The answer here is E because even taken together statements are not sufficient to give a definite YES or a definite NO answer to the question.

Hope it's clear.
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Can a certain rectangular sheet of glass be positioned on a 15 Jan 2025, 10:40
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