Data Sufficiency Pack 2, Question 3) Four raffle 'winners'...

St 1:
No two winners received the same prize.

which means, each of them received diff prize. So all the four prizes distributed to each of them. Someone has got the big prize.

This is sufficient.

St 2:
The total prize money awarded was $10,000.

If the winner didn't took the largest prize envelope, but the other envelopes of total 10K.

This is not sufficient.

Ans A.

Hi Dabhishek,

Your thinking and approach to the question were perfect, but you made a small logical mistake when dealing with Fact 2. You came up with two different possible outcomes based on a total of $10,000. In the first example, the largest price WAS awarded, so the answer to the question would be YES. In the second example though, the largest prize was NOT awarded, so the answer to the question would be NO. That is an inconsistent result, so Fact 2 is actually INSUFFICIENT.

GMAT assassins aren't born, they're made,
Rich

Hi All,

While this DS question is a bit 'wordy', that does not mean that the question is necessarily going to be that 'hard.' We're told that each of 4 raffle winners will select one envelope from a group of 4 envelopes (and the envelopes will award one of the following prizes: $1000, $2000, $3000 or $4000). After each contestant selects an envelope, the next contestant will select from a new group of 4 envelopes with the same prize values. We're asked if any of the 4 winners received the largest prize (meaning the $4000 envelope).

(1) No two winners received the same prize.

This Fact tells us that the same prize was not given out more than once. With 4 winners, and just 4 prize 'values', each of the 4 prizes had to have been given out just once. Thus, there was one $1000 winner, one $2000 winner, one $3000 winner and one $4000 winner. The answer to the question is YES.
Fact 1 is SUFFICIENT

(2) The total prize money awarded was $10,000.

With this Fact, and the knowledge that 4 prizes we awarded, the 'obvious' possibility is to assume that each prize was awarded once:

$1000 + $2000 + $3000 + $4000 = $10,000 and the answer to the question would be YES.

However, there is more than one way to get to a $10,000 total:

$1000 + $3000 + $3000 + $3000 = $10,000 and the answer to the question would be NO.
Fact 2 is INSUFFICIENT

Final Answer:

GMAT assassins aren't born, they're made,
Rich

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