How old, rounded to the nearest year, was Jim in May 1989 ?

Question

(1) Jim’s friend Steve, who is exactly 2 years older than Jim, turned 25 years old in 1972.
(2) In March 1982, Jim turned 33 years old.

JerryAtDreamScore · Answer

Breaking Down the Info:

Besides knowing which year Jim was born, we would also like to know if Jim was born before May or after May.

Statement 1 Alone:

We can backtrack which year Jim was born (we don't have to bother which exact year), but we can't tell if Jim/Steve was born before May or after May. Then this statement is insufficient.

Statement 2 Alone:

This statement gives us both pieces of information that we need, so this statement is sufficient.

Answer: B

s1804singh · Answer

Since we are required to round to the nearest year, below is my approach:

1. We are not provided a month for 1972. So in case Steve was 25 years in March 1972 we can infer that Jim was 23 years old at that time. By extrapolation, Jim will be 40 years 2 Months in May 1989 which will be rounded down to 40 years. Whereas, if the case is that Steve was 25 years but this time it is Dec. 1972, then we will round it up to 41 years. Hence insufficient.

2. Statement 2 addresses the above issue hence sufficient.

So, IMO, answer should be (B)

GMATCoachBen · Answer

s1804singh  great approach — testing cases for March 1972 vs Dec 1972 for statement (1). It's essential to read carefully and notice that the stem says "rounded to the nearest year".

I just have one suggested edit on your numbers for statement (1) —  we will round down to 39 years  — but the nice thing about DS is it doesn't affect the answer. As long as we know that there will be 2 different possible values, we don't need to do the full calculations below:

If Steve turned 25 in Dec 1972, then Jim turns 23 in Dec 1972. Therefore, 17 years later, Jim turns 40 in Dec 1989. Since May 1989 is  7 months earlier , Jim was 39 years and 5 months old, which rounds down to 39 years.

bumpbot · Answer

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How old, rounded to the nearest year, was Jim in May 1989 ?

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GMAT Data Sufficiency (DS) Questions

How old, rounded to the nearest year, was Jim in May 1989 ?

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