PS: Can you do this under 2 minutes? (m07q17)

Question

Company policies require every project group to have an even number of employees, include representatives of at least 3 ethnic minorities (Asians, African and Hispanic Americans), contain at least 33% women, and at least one supervisor with an MBA degree per 5 employees. The company is planning to start a lithium panel project together with a Taiwanese partner. The team will include 3 top scientists and 2 assistants from Taiwan. With the following additional employees available, what is the smallest team size to make sure that the project meets the policy requirements?

Name Sex Degree Ethnicity 
Albert male LLM American 
Bethany female MBA American 
Boon male M.S. Asian (Singapore) 
Chicako female B.A. Asian (Japan) 
Godwin male M.A. African (Nigeria) 
Grace female B.A. American 
Helen female M.S. African American 
Jamal male MBA African American 
John male MBA American 
Maria female Ph.D. Hispanic American 
Peter male MBA American 
Rachael female B.A. American

12
11
10
9
8

FN · Answer

looks to be C..

you just assign 1 female mba as the manger of the tiwanese group, then you hire one african american mba, higher 2 female (1 hispanic, 1 other) and 1 hispanic male..

GMAT TIGER · Answer

Asians (do not know their gender) = 3 scientist + 2 assistants from Tawain = 5
Female & MBA = Bethany (female) MBA American = 1
African = Godwin male M.A. African (Nigeria) = 1
Hispanic = Maria female Ph.D. Hispanic American = 1 
Need 1 more MBA = Jamal (male) MBA African American or Peter (male) MBA American = 1
Nedd 1 more to make even = chose anyone that is not repeated above = 1

yeah its 10.

atletikos · Answer

10 is correct, but the question is who did it just in 2 min? :-D

xALIx · Answer

GT,
Can you please explain your reasoning, how did you arrive at this, you must have kept your eye on the ratio, no?

Igor010 · Answer

Seems like nobody......

suhasrao · Answer

The question asks for smallest team size possible with the stated restrictions. Why do we assume that none of the 3 scientists and 2 assistants will not fit any of the restrictions? For example one of the 2 assistants can be of Asian ethinicity and a female.

bblast · Answer

the best hint in this querstion was that the team has an even number of employees. so just take 12 10 and 8. and then if u are smart then guess.

agdimple333 · Answer

yeh 10, you can club minorities and females together to consider both cases - 3 minorities of 10 and 33% female.

AriBenCanaan · Answer

When I saw this problem in the test I knew right away that I wasn't going to solve this within 2 minutes, so I had to make an educated guess and move on.

The only way I could guess was to consider the restriction that covers the largest number of people and that's 1 MBA for every 5 employees. So there's a maximum of 4 MBAs in the list, so the team size could be 5,10,15 or 20 and 10 is the only one that matches one of the answer choices....did I get this reasoning correct?

If this is wrong, how else does one complete this problem within 2 minutes?

OldMinolta · Answer

Fun problem. Once you realize Jamal has to be in the group and you have to then switch to either 3 or 4 women, guessing 10 is quick even if you didn't catch the "even" hint. I don't mind going over 2 minutes on this one to get it right. I was under three though.

PS: Can you do this under 2 minutes? (m07q17)

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