Professional tasters rate the sweetness of a food or beverage

Question

Professional tasters rate the sweetness of a food or beverage on a scale of zero to 100, with pure sugar rated 100. A company is testing two variants of a mango drink, X and Y. Each contains only pure pulp of the same variety of mango and sugar water (water with dissolved sugar). The ratio of pulp to sugar water is different in the two variants. The mango pulp is rated lower than 100 on the sweetness scale. An accurate professional taster rated the sweetness of one sample each of X and Y. Which was rated sweeter?

(1) X contains a lower proportion, by volume, of fruit pulp—and also less added sugar.

(2) The sugar water added to the fruit pulp is more concentrated in the case of Y.

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(1) X contains a lower proportion, by volume, of fruit pulp—and also less added sugar.

(2) The sugar water added to the fruit pulp is more concentrated in the case of Y.

https://gmatclub.com/forum/download/file_private.php?id=86838

Bunuel · Accepted Answer

Professional tasters rate the sweetness of a food or beverage on a scale of zero to 100, with pure sugar rated 100. A company is testing two variants of a mango drink, X and Y. Each contains only pure pulp of the same variety of mango and sugar water (water with dissolved sugar). The ratio of pulp to sugar water is different in the two variants. The mango pulp is rated lower than 100 on the sweetness scale. An accurate professional taster rated the sweetness of one sample each of X and Y. Which was rated sweeter?

(1) X contains a lower proportion, by volume, of fruit pulp—and also less added sugar.

(2) The sugar water added to the fruit pulp is more concentrated in the case of Y.

Show Spoiler

(1) X contains a lower proportion, by volume, of fruit pulp—and also less added sugar.

X has a smaller share of pulp and also less added sugar than Y. Both pulp and sugar are the only sources of sweetness, the rest is just water. If X has less of both sweet parts, it must be less sweet overall, so Y is definitely sweeter. Sufficient.

(2) The sugar water added to the fruit pulp is more concentrated in the case of Y.

This only tells that Y’s sugar water is stronger, but it says nothing about the pulp to sugar-water ratio in either drink.

For example, if both are 100 ml with a 50–50 split, Y is sweeter because its sugar water has more sugar.

However, if X is 90–10 (with 45 ml of sugar in pulp and 1 ml of sugar in water) and Y is 10–90 (with 5 ml of sugar in pulp, the same ratio of sugar in pulp, and 10 ml of sugar in water, which is more concentrated than in X), X will be sweeter even though Y’s sugar water is more concentrated. Not sufficient.

Answer: A.

gsnunes · Answer

I'm having a really hard time understanding this question, it came up on my Official Mock Test 1, and I didn't find it posted in the forum, can someone help me out?

Alick1 · Answer

Answer is A, as the both the sweetness factors are less in X compared to Y, so statement-1 is sufficient,
but statement 2, The sugar water added is more concentrated in Y.”

This means:

Y's sugar water is sweeter than X’s sugar water.

But we still don’t know:

How much pulp each variant has

How much total sugar water each has

Even with sweeter sugar water, Y could have more pulp (less sweet) than X, or less pulp.

arushi118 · Answer

I am a bit confused - as in the question it says that the same variety of sugar water is used. So the sugar water of Y being more concentrated is not making sense. Can you please explain where have I gone wrong in understanding the question.

Bunuel · Answer

You are reading the stem slightly incorrectly. It says “pure pulp of the same variety of mango and sugar water (water with dissolved sugar).”

“Same variety” applies only to the mango pulp, not to the sugar water. Sugar water is just defined as water with dissolved sugar, and its concentration is free to differ, so statement (2) can say that Y’s sugar water is more concentrated.

luisdicampo · Answer

Deconstructing the Question 
We are comparing the sweetness rating of two drinks, X and Y.
Sweetness comes from two sources:
1. The mango pulp (Rating < 100).
2. The added sugar (dissolved in water).

Total Sweetness depends on the  concentration  of sugar in the final mix coming from both the pulp and the added sugar.

***

Analyze Statement (1) 
"X contains a lower proportion... of fruit pulp—and also less added sugar."

Let's compare X to Y:
1.  Pulp Contribution:  X has a lower proportion of pulp. This implies Y has a higher proportion of pulp (which is sweet).
2.  Added Sugar Contribution:  X has  less  added sugar. Even if X has more volume of "sugar water" (because it has less pulp), the actual amount of sugar in it is lower. This implies the sugar water in X is very dilute compared to Y.

Logic: If drink X is weaker in pulp content AND weaker in total sugar content, the overall sugar concentration of X is lower than Y. Therefore, Y is sweeter.
 SUFFICIENT

***

Analyze Statement (2) 
"The sugar water added... is more concentrated in the case of Y."
This tells us about the quality of one ingredient (the sugar water), but ignores the quantity (the ratio of pulp to water).

Counter-example Scenario: 
*  Case A:  Y uses very concentrated syrup but only 1 drop of it (99% pulp). X uses moderately sweet water and is 99% water. Depending on the exact rating of the pulp vs the water, X could still be sweeter.
*  Case B:  Y uses concentrated syrup and is 50% syrup. Y is definitely sweeter.

Without knowing the ratio of pulp to sugar water, we cannot determine the final weighted average rating.
 INSUFFICIENT

Answer: A

mattisweb · Answer

How do we assume that the drinks are of equal size? Even if X has lower volume of sugar, it might still have a higher concentration of sugar per volume of water, assuming the drinks are of unequal size.

sudhsham · Answer

Understood the first part of Statement 1.

As per first part of statemet 1, proportion of pulp is lower in X by volume.
So, (Total volume of Pulp)/(Total volume of drink) is less in X. And since pulp in both the drinks are of same variety (and sweetness), on the basis of pulp purely, Y wins in terms of sweetness.

We have also been given that drinks only contain pulp and sugar water. So, less proportion of pulp in X would mean more proportion of sugar water as compared to Y by volume. So, even if drink X has less added sugar on an absolute basis (because nothing in statement 1 says it has less added sugar by volume), it could still be sweeter than Y because of higher concentration or proportion by volume. Could you please help with the second part of statement 1?

Bunuel · Answer

I agree that the question could have been worded more clearly in a couple of places.

kartickdey · Answer

KarishmaB   MartyMurray

I could not understand the statement 1. Please clarify whether in statement 1, less added sugar is in absolute sense, or it means that the proportion of sugar is lower.
If " less added sugar " means that in absolute amount less amount of sugar, then I do not how it is possible to answer from statement 1. My explanation is as follows: I need to know two parameters in a relative manner: one is proportion of components, and another one is sweetness of components. From the first statement it is known that X contains a lower proportion of fruit pulp; it means that it has a higher proportion of sugar water. Now less added sugar does not guarantee lower concentration of sugar water; added sugar may be less, still concentration of sugar water may be high. As we do not know the relative concentration of sugar water, it is not possible to know which one is sweeter. 
In my opinion the answer should be E. Please correct me if my thought is wrong.

harishg · Answer

In my opinion Statement 1 is not airtight.

I agree that X has lower proportion of pulp and more of sugar water and even the sugar water contains less sugar. So X is hit both ways and contains lower sugar on a standalone basis. But where is the comparison with Y?

Just because X has lower proportion of pulp and more of sugar water, it may not mean that Y would be the opposite case.

Question stem just says that the proportion is different in X and Y

It could have been the case that Y has even lesser proportion of pulp and more of sugar water and the sugar water may contain lesser sugar than X has, thereby making X more sweet.

Please correct my line of thought if anything is wrong.

KarishmaB · Answer

We are given drinks X and Y - no absolute amount of either. So we have unlimited amounts of both. 
A taster tasted one sample of each.

(1) X contains a lower proportion, by volume, of fruit pulp—and also less added sugar.

This sentence means 'X contains lower proportion of pulp by volume and also less sugar by volume. That is, in the same volume of X and Y, X has lower pulp and sugar. Comparison 'lower proportion' and 'less' makes sense only if we compare the same volumes. The 'by volume' is applicable to both. 
So this has more water and less sweeteners so Y was rated sweeter. Another factor that is in favor of this statement being sufficient is that 'one sample' of each will likely be equal by volume. A sample would likely be a defined measure. 
Sufficient alone.

(2) The sugar water added to the fruit pulp is more concentrated in the case of Y.

But how much sugar water was added in case of Y - we don't know. More concentrated but lesser volume of sugar water could give the same sweetness or more or lesser sweetness.
So not sufficient alone.

Answer (A)

Puranjaysapra · Answer

Is it right to assume that water has zero sweetness? It isn't mentioned in the stem anywhere

Bunuel · Answer

Yes. Plain water is naturally understood to have a sweetness rating of 0.

KarishmaB · Answer

It is a universally known fact that anyone taking the GMAT is meant to know. If something stays the same across the world - no matter what country, region, culture and anyone planning to do MBA is expected to know no matter what their background - Science, Humanities, Business etc, then you can assume it.
Earth is round. 
Water has no sugar in it.
Biology is a science.

Puranjaysapra · Answer

No I agree. Its just that GMAT often tests on the participants not making real world assumptions

Professional tasters rate the sweetness of a food or beverage

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