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­Hi folks - As ­Sajjad1994 mentioned, this is an official question, and we cannot change the value unless it is officially modified by the GMAC. Screenshot below, I got it in the Official Mock #4. Please change back to original AC's to aviod further confusion. 
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anish823
­Hi folks - As ­Sajjad1994 mentioned, this is an official question, and we cannot change the value unless it is officially modified by the GMAC. Screenshot below, I got it in the Official Mock #4. Please change back to original AC's to aviod further confusion. 
Thank you for reporting, I just updated it.
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Sajjad1994
anish823
­Hi folks - As ­Sajjad1994 mentioned, this is an official question, and we cannot change the value unless it is officially modified by the GMAC. Screenshot below, I got it in the Official Mock #4. Please change back to original AC's to aviod further confusion. 
Thank you for reporting, I just updated it.

Sajjad, please do not change answers without consulting with DI mod - Chetan. This should be 12. That’s the only possible solution.

While I understand the official question says 13, the rules of math say 12. Therefore we will not be bowing down to a fat fingered typo unless new information arises which has not been provided after a few requests.

Posted from my mobile device
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Sajjad1994

anish823
­Hi folks - As ­Sajjad1994 mentioned, this is an official question, and we cannot change the value unless it is officially modified by the GMAC. Screenshot below, I got it in the Official Mock #4. Please change back to original AC's to aviod further confusion. 
Thank you for reporting, I just updated it.
Sajjad, please do not change answers without consulting with DI mod - Chetan. This should be 12. That’s the only possible solution.

While I understand the official question says 13, the rules of math say 12. Therefore we will not be bowing down to a fat fingered typo unless new information arises which has not been provided after a few requests.

Posted from my mobile device
­Oh! I misunderstood it for the correct value; I thought the correct value is now updated by GMAC, but it is rather the old incorrect value. I am sorry for that.
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anish823
­Hi folks - As ­Sajjad1994 mentioned, this is an official question, and we cannot change the value unless it is officially modified by the GMAC. Screenshot below, I got it in the Official Mock #4. Please change back to original AC's to aviod further confusion. 
anish823

Confusion would arise, and it was arising till we changed the question, if we do not have 12 as an option.

Just imagine someone wasting time on not only the test but on the forum too, and then we all finding ways to justify the answer 13 someway. 

Now, bb has correctly added the para to let members know the value has been changed. I would add in my post why 13 as answer would open many possibilities as answer within the given options. 
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chetan2u

Sajjad1994
The straight-line distance between Town A and Town B is 15 km. Most travelers passing through the towns, however, use two highways-first traveling × km west from Town A on one highway and then traveling y km north to Town B on a different highway. The intersection of these highways is farther from Town A than Town B.

Select values for x and for y that are jointly consistent with the given information. Make only two selections, one in each column.
The highway is East to West and then South to North. => Thus, intersection of two highways is 90 degree.

A to B is 15 => The hypotenuse is 15.

Solution is that we have to find the pair whose square adds up to \(15^2\).

Remember, a very commonly used triplet is 3:4:5 and here we have 5x as 15 or x=3
Thus, the sides are 3*3:3*4:3*5 or 9:12:15
Longer side is Town A, so 12.
A=>12
B=>9

Choice E has to be 12.­

Just adding more data and getting this post in the beggining to substantiate why I feel 13 as an answer would open a pandora box.

We could justify 13 as an answer only by one logic and that would be: The highways may not be at 90 degree, then a slight sharp angle of 83 degree would give the distances as 9-13-15.
But a slightly more sharper angle of around 80 degree would give distances as 10-13-15, or a more wider angle of around of 104 degree would justify distances 9-10-13.
Almost all values will get justified as 15 will have to be less than the sum of other two sides and more than the difference of the other two sides.­
­How is A longer side?
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I got this question again today on practice exam 4 I spent 4.5mins on it but then chose 9 and 13 and moved on.

Cannot really assume there is a 90 degree triplet involved but that is the only way to get to a solution...I think.
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But since the question says the 'x' kms west from town A and then 'y' kms north for Town B and we know that these directions are perpendicular to each other and hence we can apply Pythagoras Theoram.
And it was also a question of using the Pythagorean triplets instead of putting the values and checking. We know a famous Pythagorean triplet (3,4,5) and Since the hypotenuse, i.e straight line distance from Town A to Town B was given 15kms (5*3) from this we can infer that the other legs will be multiplied by 3. So,
4*3=12kms
3*3=9kms
bb
This is an interesting question on many levels.

1. This is a question that would be using Geometry properties to solve it. I thought there was no geometry 😬

2. I see people are trying to solve it using the Pythagorean theorem. However the question doesn’t really really say that this is a perpendicular type of a relationship so I’m not sure we can assume that.

3. There’s also a question of correct or incorrect answer choices. It’s a mess. 😂

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