Bunuel
Three typists worked to type a single manuscript. What percent of the total number of words was typed by the slowest of the three typists?
(1) All three typists typed steadily and independently for 4 hours at the rates of 40, 50, and 60 words per minute to complete the manuscript.
(2) The fastest typist typed 150% as fast as the slowest.
This is a good example of a DS question that can be answered using reasoning alone, with no calculations.
This is a work / rate problem, which means you'll use (conceptually at least) W = RT (work = rate * time).
Statement 1:This gives you both the rates and the time for all 3 typists. Using W = RT, you'll be able to find the amount of work completed by each typist, and from that the percentage of work completed by the slowest typist. No need to actually calculate.
Sufficient.Statement 2:This gives you the relationship between the typing speeds of the fastest and slowest typists, but nothing about the medium typist. The medium typist could be exactly in the middle of the other two (as in Statement 1, where 50 wpm is between 40 and 60), or the medium typist could be (for example) almost as fast as the fastest typist. The second scenario would mean the medium typist did more work than in the first scenario, reducing the percentage typed by the slowest.
Not sufficient.The answer is A.
On Data Sufficiency, look to avoid or simplify calculations when you don't need them. You don't need to know the solution, only whether you can solve for one answer (sufficient) or more than one answer (not sufficient). This can help avert calculation errors and save you time for the rest of the Data Insights section.