The manager at the Gentle Wave Guesthouse just received three requests

Question

The manager at the Gentle Wave Guesthouse just received three requests to reserve rooms for next week. The first request is for a room for one person for three nights, starting on Sunday, Monday, or Tuesday night. The second is for a room for three people for Thursday night only. The third is for a room for two people for two nights, Friday and Saturday. The manager will fulfill all three requests using the rooms listed on the Rooms tab and the Availability Calendar tab.

Any room that is available (that is, not already reserved) for the requested nights and whose maximum occupancy is equal to or greater than the number of people listed in the request will satisfy the request; no other rooms can be used to satisfy the request. For the two requests involving more than one person, sharing beds is an option, so the number of beds per room need not be equal to or greater than the number of people mentioned in the request.

nekr0 · Accepted Answer

Try working bottom up, see if it helps.

(i) For 2 people on Fri - Sat  
Only Seashell is available for both the days.  BOOK SEASHELL for FRIDAY - SATURDAY .

(ii) For 3 people on Thursday  
2 rooms are available: Moonlight and Starfish.
Since Moonlight has max occupancy of 2, eliminate Moonlight and  BOOK STARFISH (max occupancy of 4) for THURSDAY .

(iii)  For 1 person, for 3 days, starting on Sunday/Monday/Tuesday 
 
  Sunday  :  Starfish room (max occupancy = 4) available. 3 days = Sun-Mon-Tue. Thus,   does not   coincide with (ii).    Manager COULD fulfill on Sunday   .

Monday   : Beach, Starfish, and Seashell are available. But ONLY Beach room (max occupancy = 6) is available for all the 3 days, i.e., from Mon-Tue-Wed.    Manager COULD fulfill on Monday   .

Tuesday  :  Beach, Harbor, and Starfish are available. But  NONE  of them are available for 3 days. Therefore,    Manager CAN'T fulfill the order on Tuesday   .

Allfather02 · Answer

For each of the nights, select Yes if the manager could fulfill the first reservation request by having it start that night, based on the information provided. Otherwise, select No.YesNo Sunday nightMonday nightTuesday night
The first question assumes that the rooms cannot be interchanged, i.e. once a room is assigned it cannot be changed until the scheduled time of the request has elapsed.

All of the rooms can be used to accomodate the first request as occupancy is greater than request(1 Guest).

Glancing at availibilty calendar of the resort, it can be noted that following rooms can be assigned in a row: 
R1 => Sunday : Starfish : Yes
R1 => Monday : Beach : Yes
R1 => Tuesday : (X) : No

Among the rooms that have NOT yet been reserved for Tuesday night according to the information on the Availability Calendar tab, the room with the lowest maximum occupancy can accommodate at most.one persontwo peoplethree peoplefour peoplesix people
For the second question, available rooms are: Beach, Harbor and Starfish out of which Harbor has least max occupancy i.e 3.

SirSanguine · Answer

hi  Allfather02  how did you make this sense out of the first question? its baffling me , can you please explain a bit more?

nguyenpham1309 · Answer

For the 1st question, I think the key idea is to understand that when a customer reserves a room, there won't be any room changes during their stay at the hotel. To check the availability of a reserve, there are two conditions:

1. "maximum occupancy is equal to or greater than the number of people listed in the request."
2. "no other rooms can be used to satisfy the request." It might be overlooked at first, but it just means when one room is chosen to be reserved for that customer in x nights, we cannot add the 2nd room in the same booking.

Following the 1st reservation, the customer stays 3 consecutive nights at the hotel. Thus, for each combo of 3 days in the availability calendars, we must check if there is a room that has not yet been reserved for 3 consecutive nights.

ttrraanng · Answer

Hi, I'm confused. The first order could not start on Sunday.

The second order requires a room for 3 people on Thursday, which only Starfish can satisfy. So if the first order started on Sunday, it would take over Starfish and made the 3rd order impossible. Quote: 'The manager will fulfill all three requests using the rooms listed on the Rooms tab and the Availability Calendar tab'.

Is overthinking is a thing in gmat now?@@

nekr0 · Answer

Sunday night, monday night, tuesday night. Given to second order on thursday.

nekr0 · Answer

Look if my first answer helps you. For the second one, the rooms that are NOT RESERVED ON TUESDAY are:

1) Beach (max occupancy = 6)
2) Harbor (max occupancy = 3)
3) Starfish (max occupancy = 4)

Sorted on max occupancy, it's  Beach > Starfish > Harbor , in descending order. (You don't need to do this step, it's obvs from above as well)

Thus, the THE ROOM WITH LEAST (or, like in the question - lowest) MAX OCCUPANCY is   Harbor  , which can accommodate maximum of   3 people  !

satish_sahoo · Answer

Hi, Happy to help here.

My notes while I read the tabs-

1st request – 1 person – 3nights – Start (Sun/Mon/Tue)
2nd request – 3 person – 1night – Start Thursday
3rd request – 2 person – 2nights – Start Fri & Sat

Now to questions,

For each of the nights, select Yes if the manager could fulfill the first reservation request by having it start that night, based on the information provided. Otherwise, select No.

Sunday Night –   YES.  
Reasons – If they start on sun, they will stay for sun, mon and Tuesday. Starfish room is available. No issues here. Now, for 2nd request. It starts on Thursday, manager can fit the 3 persons in Starfish (Max occ- 4) for 1 night on Thursday no problem. Now, the 3rd request with 2persons can be fitted in Seashell room (Max occ- 2).

Monday night-   YES.  
Reasons – Beach room has 3 consecutive available days, starting from Mon. The 2nd and 3rd request can be exactly placed in the same rooms in same manner, which we discussed above.

Tuesday night –   No.  
Why? There are no 3 consecutive available days for the 1st request.

Among the rooms that have NOT yet been reserved for Tuesday night according to the information on the Availability Calendar tab, the room with the lowest maximum occupancy can accommodate at most.

Break this ques first- 
NOT yet been reserved for Tuesday night-  Beach, Harbor and starfirsh 
room with the lowest maximum occupancy-  Beach (6), Harbor (3), Starfish (4). So, Harbor it is. 
can accommodate at most-  Max occ cannot be crossed, so at most 3. 
 Hence, 3 people.

Hope it helps.

D3N0 · Answer

Here are my 2c on this.

Request No.  
 1 
 2 
 3 
 
  Request 
 1P - 3N 
 3P - 1N 
 2P - 2N 
 
  Starting On Nights 
 Sun/Mon/Tue 
 Th only  
 (Fri + Sat) Only

Condition for room reservation:  Any room that is available (that is, not already reserved) for the requested nights and whose maximum occupancy is equal to or greater than the number of people listed in the request will satisfy the request; no other rooms can be used to satisfy the request.

Since Request 2 and 3 are specific with higher constrains, we will think of them first.

For Request 2  (3P - 1N on Thu Only) there are only 3 options for Rooms --> Harbor, Star, and Beach. Out of these three, Beach and Harbor are not available on Thu Night, so we only have  Starfish available for Request-2 .

For Request 3 (2P - 2N on Fri and Sat) We only have Seashell available for both nights, so Seashell is booked for Request-3

Now Request-1  (1P - 3N which can start any day Sun, Mon, OR Tue) 
 Starts on Sun:  Only Starfish is available for 3 consecutive days till Tue.  (Possible) 
 Starts on Mon:  Only Beach Room is available for 3 consecutive days  (Possible) 
 Starts on Tues:  No Room Available for 3 days  (Not Possible)

agrasan · Answer

Hi  KarishmaB   MartyMurray

Is it fair to say that the given info   "For the two requests involving more than one person, sharing beds is an option, so the number of beds per room need not be equal to or greater than the number of people mentioned in the request."   was  NOT  of any use for both questions?

I got both correct but just wanted to confirm my reasoning to avoid any pit falls.

MartyMurray · Answer

That information is not of much use since the Reservation Requests tab presents the following information:

Any room ... whose maximum occupancy is equal to or greater than the number of people listed in the request will satisfy the request

At the same time, since that information indicates that we can ignore the number of beds, being aware of it is somewhat useful because, if we were not aware of it, we might spend time wondering whether the numbers of beds are somehow relevant. So, by noting that fact about the beds, we can get through the second question a little more quickly and with confirmation that we're on the right track.

alamin8 · Answer

But the question said, "any room which is not reserved can fulfill based on the occupancy"

ShreyaMittal1609 · Answer

Hi  Hi   KarishmaB   MartyMurray

First question only asks to fulfill 1st request so we can ignore 2nd and 3rd request and still get the correct ans. 
Is my understanding wrong as I see the comments are considering all the 3 requests while selecting Yes/No for 1st question.

egmat · Answer

Hi ShreyaMittal1609,

Your instinct is mostly right, but there's a subtle reason the commenters bring in all three requests, so let me pin down exactly what's going on.

The stimulus ( Reservation Requests  tab) says the manager  "will fulfill all three requests."  That single sentence means a start night for request  1  only counts as  Yes  if request  1  can start there  and  the rooms still work out for requests  2  and  3 . So strictly, you can't declare Q1 answerable in a vacuum - you have to be sure your choice for request  1  doesn't starve the other two.

Here's the good news:  in  this  question, that check turns out to be free, which is why your shortcut gave the right answer.

-  Request 2  ( 3  people, Thursday) can only go in  Starfish  - it's the one room with max occupancy ≥  3  that's open Thursday on the  Availability Calendar  tab.
-  Request 3  ( 2  people, Fri-Sat) can only go in  Seashell  - the one room open both nights.
-  Request 1  needs  three  consecutive  nights: Starfish covers Sun-Mon-Tue, Beach covers Mon-Tue-Wed.

Notice that request  1 's nights (Sun-Wed range)  never overlap  Thursday or Fri-Sat. So even when request  1  uses Starfish starting Sunday, Starfish is still free Thursday for request  2 . No collision anywhere.

That's the exact worry another commenter raised - that starting Sunday would "take" Starfish and block Thursday. It doesn't, because a room booked Sun-Mon-Tue is still available Thursday.

So the takeaway:  the commenters aren't over-thinking - they're confirming the "fulfill all three" condition holds. It just happens that the requests occupy different nights, so request  1 's availability alone lands the correct  Yes, Yes, No . Your reasoning works here; just keep the all-three check in your back pocket for cases where the nights  do  overlap.