Official Solution:At XYZ airport, flights arrived every hour for 24 hours on a certain Saturday. Was the total number of flights that arrived on that day greater than 180? (1) The median number of flight arrivals per hour on that Saturday was 17.
The median of a set with an even number of terms (in this case, 24) is determined by finding the average of the two middle terms, when they are arranged in ascending or descending order. Since the median is 17, this implies that 17 is the average of the 12th and 13th greatest numbers of arrivals per hour. Therefore, for at least 12 hours (from the 13th greatest to the 24th greatest), there were at least 17 flight arrivals per hour. This, in turn, means that the total number of arrivals on Saturday was at least \(12*17=204\), which is greater than the threshold of 180. Hence, the statement is sufficient.
(2) The highest number of flight arrivals in a single hour on that Saturday was 30.
This statement is clearly insufficient to determine whether the total number of arrivals on Saturday was greater than 180. While the maximum number of arrivals in a single hour was 30, this information does not tell us anything about the number of arrivals in the other 23 hours. For example, it's possible that there were only 1 arrival per hour for 23 hours, and 30 arrivals in the remaining hour, resulting in a total of only \(23*1+30 = 53\) arrivals for the day, which is less than 180 but it's also possible that there were 30 arrivals each hour, resulting in a total of \(24*30 = 720\) arrivals for the day, which is more than 180. Therefore, statement (2) alone does not provide enough information to answer the question.
Answer: A
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