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# Last year, sales at Company X were 10% greater in February than in Jan

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Joined: 05 Aug 2015
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Kudos [?]: 41 [3], given: 36

Last year, sales at Company X were 10% greater in February than in Jan [#permalink]

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24 Apr 2016, 22:36
3
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14
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Difficulty:

45% (medium)

Question Stats:

67% (01:07) correct 33% (01:14) wrong based on 501 sessions

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Last year, sales at Company X were 10% greater in February than in January, 15% less in March than in Feb, 20% greater in April than in March, 10% less in May than in April, and 5% greater in June than in May. In which month were sales closest to Jan?

a. Feb
b. Mar
c. Apr
d. May
e. June

What's the easiest / quickest way to solve this?
[Reveal] Spoiler: OA

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Last year, sales at Company X were 10% greater in February than in Jan [#permalink]

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25 Apr 2016, 01:37
happyface101 wrote:
Last year, sales at Company X were 10% greater in February than in January, 15% less in March than in Feb, 20% greater in April than in March, 10% less in May than in April, and 5% greater in June than in May. In which month were sales closest to Jan?

a. Feb
b. Mar
c. Apr
d. May
e. June

What's the easiest / quickest way to solve this?

Quote:
10% greater in February than in January
15% less in March than in Feb
20% greater in April than in March
10% less in May than in April
5% greater in June than in May

Can you find the link ? Yes you are correct, sales of next month depends on the sale of This month............

So, Assume Sales in Jan as 1000 or x as you wish and proceed.....

Abhishek

PS : This is a calculation intensive Problem and will result in decimal numbers so, it will be better to assume the sales figure of Jan as X and solve algebraically ( My personal Opinion)
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Thanks and Regards

Abhishek....

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Kudos [?]: 1174 [0], given: 327

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Last year, sales at Company X were 10% greater in February than in Jan [#permalink]

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28 Apr 2016, 13:16
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This can be solved using smart numbers: Let January = $100. (Keep in mind we are using "approximate" values, as per the problem). We have: Jan =$100
10% greater in February than in January ---> Feb = 1.1 Jan = $110 15% less in March than in Feb ---> Mar = 0.85 Feb =$93.5
20% greater in April than in March ---> Apr = 1.2 Mar = $112 10% less in May than in April ---> May = 0.9 Apr =$101 (we have a winner)
5% greater in June than in May --->Jun = 1.05 May = $106 Ans D Kudos [?]: 12 [6], given: 13 Veritas Prep GMAT Instructor Joined: 16 Oct 2010 Posts: 7863 Kudos [?]: 18461 [10], given: 237 Location: Pune, India Re: Last year, sales at Company X were 10% greater in February than in Jan [#permalink] ### Show Tags 28 Apr 2016, 20:41 10 This post received KUDOS Expert's post 8 This post was BOOKMARKED happyface101 wrote: Last year, sales at Company X were 10% greater in February than in January, 15% less in March than in Feb, 20% greater in April than in March, 10% less in May than in April, and 5% greater in June than in May. In which month were sales closest to Jan? a. Feb b. Mar c. Apr d. May e. June What's the easiest / quickest way to solve this? You can do this question easily if you understand number properties. Let me try to explain. Note that explaining takes quite a bit of time though if you understand this, thinking through doesn't take more than a few seconds: There is an increase, then a decrease, then an increase, then a decrease and an increase again. Most probably, when you apply an increase and then a decrease, the figure will come back close to its original value. So March or May are the best bets. The first iteration (Feb-March) will take it much lower since after you increase by 10%, you are decreasing by a number greater than 10%. Actually, to come back to original, you need to decrease by a number slightly smaller than 10%. Take an example: original value = 100 Increase by 10% to get 110. Now if you decrease it by about 9%, you will get 100 back. But you actually decrease by 15% so it goes down. So March is unlikely. Next iteration is April-May. You increase a number smaller than 100 by 20% and then bring it down by 10%. This should be the answer in all probability. Though 20% seems like a big increase compared to the 10% decrease so it looks like the figure might be much greater than original but the next step (5% increase) is a further increase so June is anyway not possible. Just to be sure, let's see the effect of these 4 operations on the original value: (11/10)*(17/20)*(6/5)*(9/10) = (99/100)*(102/100) (club together first and last terms to get 99/100 and second and third terms to get 102/100) This would be extremely close to 1. So answer would be May. Answer (D) _________________ Karishma Veritas Prep | GMAT Instructor My Blog Get started with Veritas Prep GMAT On Demand for$199

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Re: Last year, sales at Company X were 10% greater in February than in Jan [#permalink]

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21 Jul 2016, 03:35
VeritasPrepKarishma wrote:
happyface101 wrote:
Last year, sales at Company X were 10% greater in February than in January, 15% less in March than in Feb, 20% greater in April than in March, 10% less in May than in April, and 5% greater in June than in May. In which month were sales closest to Jan?

a. Feb
b. Mar
c. Apr
d. May
e. June

What's the easiest / quickest way to solve this?

You can do this question easily if you understand number properties. Let me try to explain. Note that explaining takes quite a bit of time though if you understand this, thinking through doesn't take more than a few seconds:

There is an increase, then a decrease, then an increase, then a decrease and an increase again.
Most probably, when you apply an increase and then a decrease, the figure will come back close to its original value. So March or May are the best bets.

The first iteration (Feb-March) will take it much lower since after you increase by 10%, you are decreasing by a number greater than 10%. Actually, to come back to original, you need to decrease by a number slightly smaller than 10%.
Take an example: original value = 100
Increase by 10% to get 110.
Now if you decrease it by about 9%, you will get 100 back. But you actually decrease by 15% so it goes down. So March is unlikely.

Next iteration is April-May. You increase a number smaller than 100 by 20% and then bring it down by 10%. This should be the answer in all probability. Though 20% seems like a big increase compared to the 10% decrease so it looks like the figure might be much greater than original but the next step (5% increase) is a further increase so June is anyway not possible.
Just to be sure, let's see the effect of these 4 operations on the original value:
(11/10)*(17/20)*(6/5)*(9/10) = (99/100)*(102/100) (club together first and last terms to get 99/100 and second and third terms to get 102/100)
This would be extremely close to 1.

Why do we club 2nd and 3rd ?

(11/10)*(17/20)*(6/5)*(9/10) = (99/100)*(102/100) (club together first and last terms to get 99/100 and second and third terms to get 102/100)

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Re: Last year, sales at Company X were 10% greater in February than in Jan [#permalink]

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21 Jul 2016, 20:17
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Expert's post
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BOOKMARKED
parvgugnani wrote:
VeritasPrepKarishma wrote:
happyface101 wrote:
Last year, sales at Company X were 10% greater in February than in January, 15% less in March than in Feb, 20% greater in April than in March, 10% less in May than in April, and 5% greater in June than in May. In which month were sales closest to Jan?

a. Feb
b. Mar
c. Apr
d. May
e. June

What's the easiest / quickest way to solve this?

You can do this question easily if you understand number properties. Let me try to explain. Note that explaining takes quite a bit of time though if you understand this, thinking through doesn't take more than a few seconds:

There is an increase, then a decrease, then an increase, then a decrease and an increase again.
Most probably, when you apply an increase and then a decrease, the figure will come back close to its original value. So March or May are the best bets.

The first iteration (Feb-March) will take it much lower since after you increase by 10%, you are decreasing by a number greater than 10%. Actually, to come back to original, you need to decrease by a number slightly smaller than 10%.
Take an example: original value = 100
Increase by 10% to get 110.
Now if you decrease it by about 9%, you will get 100 back. But you actually decrease by 15% so it goes down. So March is unlikely.

Next iteration is April-May. You increase a number smaller than 100 by 20% and then bring it down by 10%. This should be the answer in all probability. Though 20% seems like a big increase compared to the 10% decrease so it looks like the figure might be much greater than original but the next step (5% increase) is a further increase so June is anyway not possible.
Just to be sure, let's see the effect of these 4 operations on the original value:
(11/10)*(17/20)*(6/5)*(9/10) = (99/100)*(102/100) (club together first and last terms to get 99/100 and second and third terms to get 102/100)
This would be extremely close to 1.

Why do we club 2nd and 3rd ?

(11/10)*(17/20)*(6/5)*(9/10) = (99/100)*(102/100) (club together first and last terms to get 99/100 and second and third terms to get 102/100)

You don't have to - you can to help you in your calculation. The denominators multiply to give 100. The numerator is something very close to 100. So you know that by clubbing, you can easily approximate.
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Re: Last year, sales at Company X were 10% greater in February than in Jan [#permalink]

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24 Jul 2017, 07:49
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Re: Last year, sales at Company X were 10% greater in February than in Jan [#permalink]

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03 Aug 2017, 09:16
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All of the increases and decreases can be represented in base-10, so pick a fairly large number that's base-10 and work through the calculations.

$$January=10,000$$
$$February=10,000*1.1 = 11,000$$
$$March=11,000 *.85 = 10,000*.85 + 1,000*.85=8,500 + 850 =9,350$$
$$April=9,350*1.2=9,350+.2*9,350=9,350+1,870=11,220$$
$$May=11,220*.9=11,220-.1*11,220=11,220-1,122=10,098$$

Don't calculate June - obviously, if $$10,098$$ gets larger, then it's farther from $$10,000$$ than May. The important piece here is being able to quickly do calculations with numbers in base-10. You should know shortcuts for these operations, or GMAT estimation questions will frustrate you and devour the clock.

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Re: Last year, sales at Company X were 10% greater in February than in Jan [#permalink]

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01 Sep 2017, 17:49
Let the sales is May is 100.
Then June sell = 100+5=105
April sell=100+10=110
March sell=110-20=90
Feb sell=90+15=105
Jan sell=105-15=90.
Hence, January sell is near to May sell.

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Re: Last year, sales at Company X were 10% greater in February than in Jan   [#permalink] 01 Sep 2017, 17:49
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