The table shows a marketing director's to-do list at the end of the

Question

The table shows a marketing director's to-do list at the end of the day on October 31, identifying tasks that must be completed by the end of November 12. The director will work every day from November 1 through November 12 except for one day—the director will not work on November 7. The second column indicates the total time, from beginning to end, required for the director to complete the task. The third column indicates the percentage, as of October 31, of this total time that remains. Each deadline is at the end of the day. The director will work on only one of the tasks on any given work day.

Task    Total time
required    Portion of task
still incomplete    Deadline   
  Assemble sales teams  3 days  33%  3-November     Create marketing presentations  4 days  50%  12-November     Draft product specifications  8 days  25%  8-November     Write press releases  5 days  80%  5-November

For each of the following tasks, select  Yes  if the information provided allows that the director could work on that task on November 3 and still meet the deadlines for all four tasks. Otherwise, select  No .

ID: 700236

D3N0 · Accepted Answer

https://gmatclub.com/forum/download/file.php?id=83151 https://gmatclub.com/forum/download/file.php?id=83152 Based on Above: Y, N, Y GMAT-Club-Forum-nzxid4sy.png GMAT-Club-Forum-1ffha62j.png

AT1982 · Answer

It's mentioned Director will work only one task at a time...

Can someone please clarify

Posted from my mobile device

sachi-in · Answer

In the table mentally calculate how many days left and their corresponsing deadline like: 
Assemble sales teams (AST) 1 day 3-November
Create marketing presentations (CMP) 2 days 12-November

Mark the Days along with the deadlines

1 2  3  4  5  6 7  8  9 10 11  12

If s/he does AST on 3rd , s/he will still be able to complete WPS by 5 ( using 4 days among 1 2 4 5 ) and additional 2 days after that can be used to finish DPS by 8.

If s/he does CMP on 3rd , s/he has to complete AST on one of 1 or 2. But if s/he does that s/he won't have 4 days remaining to complete WPS by 5.

If s/he does WPS on 3rd she can still manage the other tasks by deadline ( check this out by yourself )

Took 4 mins.

naman79 · Answer

I believe this question says that the director has to work continously to get a task done. It can not start the task on one day and have some gaps (gap days) and then continue back.
eg : if a task starts on 3rd, and needs 4 days to complete , then 3/4/5/6 all days the director must continue on the same task. He cannot start (say task A) on 3rd and pick another task(say B) on 4th day, continue to work on B for say 4 days and then resume A.
Is this understanding correct ?

GMAT745owner · Answer

the key is more urgent tasks should be addressed first.

kirallight · Answer

I think this question is more focused on the bolded words For each of the following tasks, select Yes if the information provided allows that the director  could work on that task  on  November 3  and still  meet the deadlines for all four tasks .

So, it means that on Nov 3rd, Directly will work on the task in question.
So,
Working on AST on 3rd - yes, as it has only 1 day of task remaining and if M works on that on Nov 3rd, s/he can complete WPR by working on 1st, 2nd 4th and 5th (as it required 4 days worth work left.)
DPS can be completed by working on 6th and 8th (7th is no work day) and CMP can be taken on any 2 of the remaining days.

If M takes CMP on 3rd. Then, M can work on AST anywhere on 1st and 2nd(let's say 1st for out clarity). Now comes the interesting part WPR required 4 days to complete, but M has only 3 days 2nd, 4th and 5th. So, not possible

Similarly if M takes WPR on 3rd then M can work on AST anywhere on 1st and 2nd(let's say 1st for out clarity).
WPR will be worked on 2nd, 3rd, 4th, 5th. DPS can be completed by working on 6th and 8th (7th is no work day) and CMP can be taken on any 2 of the remaining days.

D3N0 · Answer

Although your answer is right, remember that the director can not work on Nov 7. so it will be good to remove that day from the timeline/dateline for plotting the answers.

Nymeria26 · Answer

Hi  KarishmaB , can you pls explain why we should take that the director will work on one task till it is completed and then take up another task. why cannot it be like work on task1 for 2 days then work on task2 for 2 days and then come back to task1?

D3N0 · Answer

The director can work on only one task in one day.
As you said, the Director can definitely "work on task1 for 2 days then work on task2 for 2 days and then come back to task1" or any other task  as long as the Task is finished before the deadline   (constraints for answering the question) 
The answers to this question won't change because the director has deadlines for finishing the tasks.

BinodBhai · Answer

This was time consuming question, not sure how to solve quickly in exam

PeachSnapple1 · Answer

It means that on any given day, the Director can only work on one task and one task only. In other words, he cannot multitask to speed up the process. Also, note that it doesn't mean that if he starts a task, he has to do the same task the following day. For instance, if I work on Task 1 today, tomorrow I can work on Task 2 even though Task 1 has not been finished.

AT1982

It's mentioned Director will work only one task at a time...

Can someone please clarify

Posted from my mobile device

PeachSnapple1 · Answer

This one is one of the very few DI questions that can be solved under a minute if you know what to look for.
First, sort the project by deadline to see which task is more urgent. Second, we will need to see for each of the four project, how many days does the Director need to do. So for Task A (Assemble sales team), he still has (3 X 33% = 1 day worth of work still need to be done). Task C still has 2 days, Task D still has 2 days, and Task W still has 4 days. Note that the total number of days still need be done on task A, D, and W combined equals to exactly 7 days. And coincidentally, the latest among all of those three projects is Nov 8th. And according to the prompt, from Nov 1 - 8, the director will work exactly 7 days (because he is off on Nov 7). 
Now, let's connect the dot: we have 3 tasks; we need 7 days to do all of those 3 tasks; the Director can only (conveniently) work for 7 days. In other words, for task A, D, and W, the Director will need to prioritize them first. Therefore, he can do any of those 3 tasks (A, D, and W) on the Nov 3 and can still manage to meet the deadline. However, if he put task C, which is the last task, anywhere during those 7 days, he will not meet the deadline.

onlymalapink · Answer

the first option cannot be possible as its mentioned that assemblensales requires a day but the deadline is the same day despite us having days to work before this ita mentioned that the one day we have to work is on Nov 3 the deadline so OA is wrong imho

can anyone help me understand?
chetan2u
KarishmaB

can anyone help me understand?
 chetan2u 
 KarishmaB

chetan2u · Answer

Look there are four tasks with certain deadlines..
The total days required are

1. Assemble sales teams(A): Total 3 days so 33% of 3 days would require 1 day. As it has to finsh by 3 November, we require one day out of 1Nov, 2 Nov or 3 Nov 
 2. Create marketing presentations(C): Total 4 days so 50% of 4 days would require 2 days. As it has to finsh by 12 November, we can pick up any of the two days. 
 3. Draft product specifications(D): Total 8 days so 25% of 8 days would require 2 days. As it has to finsh by 8 November, we can pick any two days out of first 8 days. 
 4. Write press releases(W): Total 5 days so 80% of 5 days would require 4 days. As it has to finsh by 3 
 5 November, we require 4 days out of first five days.

So in first 5 days, W takes four days and we have just one day left and that has to be A. 
 Having all five days accounted for, none of other two, C or D, can occur in first five days.

Thus A and W can occur on 03 Nov as the restrictions is only for working on one single task in one day. 
 Thus three possibilities are WW A WW, WA W WW or AW W WW.

Our answers.. 
 A and W - Yes 
 C and D - No

onlymalapink · Answer

you are missing what I am trying to say for 1 we cant have done assembly on 1 or 2 Nov because the text mentions that the options presented have to at least be done once on Nov 3

assembly requires only 1 day and it has to at least be done once on nov 3 whoch also happens to be assemblies deadline which isnt possible is my confusion.

thanks for the reply

select Yes if the information provided allows that the director could work on that task on November 3
^

chetan2u · Answer

Each deadline is at the end of day.  So deadline of 03 Nov would mean by end of 03 Nov. This further means A can be done on 03 Nov.

onlymalapink · Answer

somehow I missed that thank you

Alasoy · Answer

there are several key distinct feature that you need to note down before working in this problem

1. the portion task in the table is INCOMPLETE PORTION, meaning you need to multiple the Total x Incomplete percentage in order to get the actual days
2. the task, does not necessarily have to be consecutively be done 
3. the task, does not have to be started at 3 Nov, but it MUST include 3 nov as one of the days where the task is being done

after that, you can easily finish this question

Usernamevisible · Answer

A strong test-taker notices:

Sales (1 day by Nov 3) + Press (4 days by Nov 5) = exactly 5 days of work in the first 5 calendar days.

So the first five days are completely saturated.

Any assignment of Nov 3 that steals a required day from that block creates trouble.

That's the bottleneck that matters—not the overall 2-day slack.

The table shows a marketing director's to-do list at the end of the

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Task	Total time required	Portion of task still incomplete	Deadline
Assemble sales teams	3 days	33%	3-November
Create marketing presentations	4 days	50%	12-November
Draft product specifications	8 days	25%	8-November
Write press releases	5 days	80%	5-November

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