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powerka
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Joe is older to Lloyd by five years. Ten years ago, John was 29 Aug 2009, 00:13
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17% (02:07) correct 83% (01:37) wrong based on 11 sessions

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Question:
Joe is older to Lloyd by five years. Ten years ago, John was 10 years older than Mary. What is Mary's age today?
(1) Mary's age today is three times the age of Joe.
(2) Lloyd today is 5 years old.

Source: GMATlive's free CAT

I say puzzling as I can't understand how come I can be answering this simple question incorrectly.

Questions says:
. J=L+5
. J-10=M-10 -> J=M

Statement 1: M=3J -> not sufficient

Statement 2: L=5
With that we can get J, and therefore M

I say answer is B. GMATlive says I'm wrong.

Does anybody feel like spending a couple of minutes on this?

Thanks

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Joe is older to Lloyd by five years. Ten years ago, John was 29 Aug 2009, 00:35
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You said B. Can you solve it by using only statement 2?

powerka
Question: Joe is older to Lloyd by five years. Ten years ago, John was 10 years older than Mary. What is Mary's age today?

(2) Lloyd today is 5 years old.
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Always be careful of not mixing statement 1 with statement 2 and vice versa while selecting answer choice either A or B. Thats what DS is...
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Joe is older to Lloyd by five years. Ten years ago, John was 29 Aug 2009, 09:10
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Yes. Plug in L=5 into J=L+5 and get J=10. Then plug in J=10 into J=M and get M=10.
Statement 2 is sufficient. Answer B.
Anything wrong with this?
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powerka
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Joe is older to Lloyd by five years. Ten years ago, John was 29 Aug 2009, 09:41
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Doh, stupid me. Thanks.
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sasen
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Joe is older to Lloyd by five years. Ten years ago, John was 29 Aug 2009, 11:30
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Answer should be E..right?
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powerka
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Joe is older to Lloyd by five years. Ten years ago, John was 29 Aug 2009, 11:43
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Questions says:
. Joe=L+5
. Jh-10=M-10 -> Jh=M
-> what is M?

Statement 1: M=3Joe -> not sufficient
Statement 2: L=5 -> We can get Joe, but can't get Mary -> not sufficient
Together: from Statement 2 we got Joe; plug that into M=3Joe from statement 1 and we get Mary.

Answer is C.

The information about John is irrelevant; its there just to generate confusion.
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Joe is older to Lloyd by five years. Ten years ago, John was 30 Aug 2009, 02:00
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powerka
Questions says:
. Joe=L+5
. Jh-10=M-10 -> Jh=M
-> what is M?

Statement 1: M=3Joe -> not sufficient
Statement 2: L=5 -> We can get Joe, but can't get Mary -> not sufficient
Together: from Statement 2 we got Joe; plug that into M=3Joe from statement 1 and we get Mary.

Answer is C.

The information about John is irrelevant; its there just to generate confusion.
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Thanks..nice explanation..i get totally confused...guess i need to write down things
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Joe is older to Lloyd by five years. Ten years ago, John was 14 Sep 2010, 23:48
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Yup C.. Need to read the stem carefully. Stem tricks us to assume Joe and John to be same if using "J" while forming equations.
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Joe is older to Lloyd by five years. Ten years ago, John was 15 Sep 2010, 07:24
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powerka
Question:
Joe is older to Lloyd by five years. Ten years ago, John was 10 years older than Mary. What is Mary's age today?
(1) Mary's age today is three times the age of Joe.
(2) Lloyd today is 5 years old.

Source: GMATlive's free CAT

I say puzzling as I can't understand how come I can be answering this simple question incorrectly.

Questions says:
. J=L+5
. J-10=M-10 -> J=M
Show more

There was one other mistake in the above, which I guess went unnoticed. If ten years ago, John was 10 years older than Mary, then John is always going to be ten years older than Mary, so the equation J-10 = M-10 is not correct; it should read J - 10 = M.
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Joe is older to Lloyd by five years. Ten years ago, John was 30 Oct 2010, 02:55
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powerka
Question:
Joe is older to Lloyd by five years. Ten years ago, John was 10 years older than Mary. What is Mary's age today?
(1) Mary's age today is three times the age of Joe.
(2) Lloyd today is 5 years old.

Source: GMATlive's free CAT

I say puzzling as I can't understand how come I can be answering this simple question incorrectly.

Questions says:
. J=L+5
. J-10=M-10 -> J=M

Statement 1: M=3J -> not sufficient

Statement 2: L=5
With that we can get J, and therefore M

I say answer is B. GMATlive says I'm wrong.

Does anybody feel like spending a couple of minutes on this?

Thanks
Show more

You are wrong because you mistake Joe and John.
You use J denote for both Joe and John --> you come up with wrong formula.

This is careless error.

This Question is Locked Due to Poor Quality
Hi there,
The question you've reached has been archived due to not meeting our community quality standards. No more replies are possible here.
Looking for better-quality questions? Check out the 'Similar Questions' block below for a list of similar but high-quality questions.
Want to join other relevant Problem Solving discussions? Visit our Data Sufficiency (DS) Forum for the most recent and top-quality discussions.
Thank you for understanding, and happy exploring!
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