Mr. Kramer, the losing candidate in a two-candidate

Question

Mr. Kramer, the losing candidate in a two-candidate election, received 942,568 votes, which was exactly 40 percent of all votes cast. Approximately what percent of the remaining votes would he need to have received in order to have won at least 50 percent of all the votes cast?

A. 10%
B. 12%
C. 15%
D. 17%
E. 20%

A. 10% 
B. 12% 
C. 15% 
D. 17% 
E. 20%

srijay007 · Accepted Answer

1 min
Assume there are 100 votes
Kramer has 40 and the winner has 60
Kramer needs atleast 50 which means atleast 10 out of 60 which is 16.67%
Hence I'll go with D

AkamaiBrah · Answer

Divide the vote into 10 parts. He got 4 parts, he needs 5 parts. So he need 1 part out of the remaining 6 parts or .166666666...% -- plus one vote.

KarishmaB · Answer

Let me point out here that a 6 digit number as insane as this, is a giveaway that it doesn't need to be used. Among the larger numbers, it's a good idea to be familiar with the exponents of primes such as 1024, 729, 4096, 3125 etc and of course our special number 1001. But a number as huge and as random as 942,568 is too tedious.

thisisit25 · Answer

Let total votes won by Kramer be --> z (given = 942,568)
Let all votes cast be --> t

Given: z = 0.4t
Find: What % of   remaining   votes are needed to make Kramer's total go up from 40% to 50%?

Let votes required by k% of remaining.
Remaining = t - 0.4t = 0.6t
We also know that Kramer only needs 10% of the total more (already had 40% of total)
So,
0.6t * k/100 = 0.1t
t gets cancelled -->
k = 0.1 * 100 / 0.6 = 16.6667

findingmyself · Answer

The number if you bite it is a time killer and going to de-rail your entire time in Quant. Hence look at this approach below:

Let X be the total Number of votes:

40% X is 94....
Remaining votes= 60%X 
Let % of remaining votes he needs from 60% of X be  A% 
Votes he needs to bridge winning criteria is (50% of X-40% of X)=  10% of X

So the question is asking what % (A) or remaining votes (60% X) is going to be (10% of X)
Putting into an equation

(60X/100)(A/100)=(10X/100)

X got cancelled out to give A=16.66% Approximately 17%.

Mr. Kramer, the losing candidate in a two-candidate

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Mr. Kramer, the losing candidate in a two-candidate

Prep Toolkit

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