Jane purchased only pencils and pens for $0.30 and $0.60, respectively

Question

Jane purchased only pencils and pens for $0.30 and $0.60, respectively.

In the table, select two statements that, when combined, will be sufficient to determine the number of pens that Jane bought. Make two selections, one in each column.

Veritas Prep.

mikemcgarry · Answer

I'm happy to help with this. :-)

This question is definitely not up to the standards the GMAT has established for IR 2PA questions. The two answers that are correct could go in either column, so there are two perfectly legitimate ways to state the correct answer. That is NEVER the case in a bonafide GMAT IR 2PA --- in the official questions, there is ALWAYS a meaningful difference between the columns. That's the entire point of this genre of question. This question falls very much short of that standard. As for solving it ---- statements are (A) & (B) & (E) are simple inequalities, and statements (C) & (D) are equations, and it's not surprising that equations give you more information than do inequalities. Without doing any calculations, without even considering much of the material of the question, this is just a slam dunk. (C) & (D), in either order. The GMAT never makes things that easy, either on DS or on the IR --- it would have you compare inequalities to inequalities, or equations to equations, or it would have combined equations or inequalities with more complex conditions ---- " If she had bought one more pen, only then would she have spent more on pens than on pencils " BTW, the prices for pencils & pens are totally unrealistic. The GMAT, as a test that prepares people for business school, usually keeps prices in problems closer to the ballpark of real world prices, and many better GMAT prep sources follow suit. Please let me know whether there is any question on any of this. Mike :-)

Sajjad1994 · Answer

Official Explanation

Statement 1: C
Statement 2: D

Or the answers could be reversed.

Solutions: Choices C and D work together nicely. Choice C reduces the number of variables by setting the number of pencils equal to the number of pens. And choice D allows you to solve for the number of pencils, using the equation 0.3p = 3. This means that she bought 10 pencils, and since the number of pencils equals the number of pens, this means that she bought 10 pens.

saurabhbajpai · Answer

Even the reverse choices should be fine. Would GMAT give that flexibility?

Posted from my mobile device

kashifali677 · Answer

the explanation you provided still provide no explanation to me!

Oppenheimer1945 · Answer

0.3a+0.6b;

if 0.3a=10, a=b. We are suff to get

(C,D) or (D,C) is ans

dejavu3363 · Answer

terribly bad question as far as GMAT standards are concerned. never there are 2 possible answers in the TPA. CD or DC both are right

cheshire · Answer

I would agree the answer format is amateur and wouldn't be used on the actual test. Even so, the premise of the question certainly isn't terrible.
Even though (C, D) and (D, C) both work, they are not two different logical solutions — they are the same solution reordered.

Bunuel · Answer

Yes, I agree.

Locking and archiving the question.

Thank you.

Statement 1	Statement 2
		She bought more than $8 worth of pencils and pens.
		She bought less than $10 worth of pencils and pens.
		She bought an equal number of pencils and pens.
		She bought $3 worth of pencils.
		She bought at least 18 pencils and pens combined.

Jane purchased only pencils and pens for $0.30 and $0.60, respectively

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