Bunuel wrote:
A company makes and sells two products, P and Q. The costs per unit of making and selling P and Q are $8.00 and $9.50, respectively, and the selling prices per unit of P and Q are $10.00 and $13.00, respectively. In one month the company sold a total of 834 units of these products. Was the total profit on these items more than $2,000?
(1) During the month, more units of P than units of Q were sold.
(2) During the month, at least 100 units of Q were sold.
Given: A company makes and sells two products, P and Q. The costs per unit of making and selling P and Q are $8.00 and $9.50, respectively, and the selling prices per unit of P and Q are $10.00 and $13.00, respectively. In one month the company sold a total of 834 units of these products. Profit made by selling one unit of product P = $10.00 - $8.00 = $2.00
Profit made by selling one unit of product Q = $13.00 - $9.50 = $3.50
Let P = the number of units of product P sold.
Let Q = the number of units of product Q sold.
So, the
TOTAL profit = 2P + 3.5Q Also, since the company sold a total of 834 units, we can write:
P + Q = 834Target question: Was the total profit on these items more than $2,000? Statement 1: During the month, more units of P than units of Q were sold. In other words: P > Q
Let's examine two extreme cases:
Case a: P = 833 and Q = 1 (since we must satisfy the condition that
P + Q = 834). In this case, the profit =
2(833) + 3.5(1) = $1669.50. So, the answer to the target question is
NO, the total profit was not greater than $2000Case b: P = 418 and Q = 416. In this case, the profit =
2(418) + 3.5(416) = $2292. So, the answer to the target question is
YES, the total profit was greater than $2000Since we can’t answer the
target question with certainty, statement 1 is NOT SUFFICIENT
Statement 2: During the month, at least 100 units of Q were sold.There are many scenarios that satisfy statement 2 (and the given information). Here are two:
Case a: P = 724 and Q = 100. In this case, the profit =
2(724) + 3.5(100) = $1798. So, the answer to the target question is
NO, the total profit was not greater than $2000Case b: P = 418 and Q = 416. In this case, the profit =
2(418) + 3.5(416) = $2292. So, the answer to the target question is
YES, the total profit was greater than $2000Since we can’t answer the
target question with certainty, statement 2 is NOT SUFFICIENT
Statements 1 and 2 combined IMPORTANT: Notice that the counter-examples I used for statement 2 satisfy BOTH statements. So, those same counter-examples will show that the two statements COMBINED are not sufficient.
In other words,
Case a: P = 724 and Q = 100. In this case, the profit =
2(724) + 3.5(100) = $1798. So, the answer to the target question is
NO, the total profit was not greater than $2000Case b: P = 418 and Q = 416. In this case, the profit =
2(418) + 3.5(416) = $2292. So, the answer to the target question is
YES, the total profit was greater than $2000Since we can’t answer the
target question with certainty, the combined statements are NOT SUFFICIENT
Answer: E
Cheers,
Brent