Caroline bikes uphill to work and returns by the same route at a 30%

Question

Caroline bikes uphill to work and returns by the same route at a 30% faster rate. How long is her commute to and from work?
 
(1) She spends the equivalent of 10% of her workday commuting. 
(2) She spends 40% of the entire 24-hour day commuting and working.

saabdulkhader · Answer

Ans C.
1, and 2, individually is not sufficient.
when combined you can find total time commuting.

kshitij89 · Answer

(1) She spends the equivalent of 10% of her workday commuting - Insufficient

(2) She spends 40% of the entire 24-hour day commuting and working -

So , 10 hrs she spends on Commuting & working - Insufficient.

1+2 : 1 hr she spends to commute to and from work 
C is the answer.

dhnjy · Answer

Dear Bunuel,

Does 10 % of workday not mean 10% of 24. Afterall, 24 hr is one day.

Thanks.

getahead · Answer

Hi  dhnjy

No that would not be an accurate assumption as the question does not tell how long is her "workday" it could be 10 hours out of 24 hours or could be 8 hours out of 24 hours.

krish76 · Answer

wait... so it is asking for time taken? and we deduce it just from the statements without the stem!!! i dont think it is a valid question, but its from bunuel.. so

priyatomar · Answer

isn't the answer (E) ?

arvind910619 · Answer

Imo C

From statement 1 we know just the commute time as a percentage of her workday, so this statement is insufficient as we can have any number of hours as working hours.
From statement 2 we know the total work hours that include commute and working time.

From both these statement we can know Caroline's commute total commute time.

from statement 2 we have 0.4*24=9.6 hours
from statement 1 we have commute time = 0.1*working time 
or commute time =0.1*9.6 =0.96
Hence together two statements are sufficient .

ankitsaroha · Answer

I think that the answer is E.

The question is asking for the distance.
Statement1 and Statement2 give us total time = 0.96 hours.
Let distance to work be d kilometers,
time taken to bike uphill be t1 hours,
time taken to return be t2 hours,
speed while going uphill be s kmph

Speed while returning = 1.3s

d = s*t1
d/s = t1

d = 1.3s*t2
d/1.3s = t2

t1 + t2 = 0.96 hours
d/s + d/1.3s = 0.96

Because we do not have the value of the speed, we cannot find the distance.

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devlin · Answer

And what if the time comuting mentioned in statement 1 was not only to and from her work? I didn't choose C because I thought It was a trap.

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Kezia9 · Answer

Hi Ankit,

We have to find the time taken not the distance. Initially I too misunderstood the question.

TheNightKing · Answer

How? If you're saying so you should also find out the answer.

ParryB · Answer

So, with the statement 2 you know that the time taken for work and commute is 10 hours.
Statement 1 tells you that the commute time is 1 hour.

Assume time taken while going uphill is "a" so then the time taken when going downhill is "1-a"

Speed while uphill be "s" so now then speed coming downhill is "1.3s".

Distance covered is same going uphill and downhill.

So, a*s = 1.3s(1-a)
Divide by s on both the sides.
a=1.3(1-a)

This is a solvable equation hence the data provided by 1&2 is sufficient.

PinakiRDas · Answer

Does all the answers assume - definition of work day (which is commuting + working) not working only? Was E for me though.

puneetb · Answer

Question boils down to just "What do you mean by a WORKDAY?".

rak08 · Answer

Isnt this question ambiguous? how to infer its asking for time taken and not distance

KarishmaB · Answer

Not really. How long is the to and fro commute implies "total time taken." 
Else, "to and from" doesn't make sense. After all, the distance is the same on both legs. The question would ask 'how far is her work from home...' or 'what is the distance between...' if it wanted to ask about the distance. An actual GMAT will likely be even clearer but as is too the question is acceptable.

roshaun25 · Answer

This question is extremely unclear and misleading. "How long" is her commute could be referring to either the time taken or the distance. In addition, one must make the assumption that "workday" consists of both time working and commuting in order to arrive at the "correct" answer of C. Based on the lack of clarity in both the question and the statements, the answer should be E

Caroline bikes uphill to work and returns by the same route at a 30%

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