Last visit was: 25 Apr 2026, 17:52 It is currently 25 Apr 2026, 17:52
Home
Messages
Tests
Schools
Events
Close
GMAT Club Daily Prep
Thank you for using the timer - this advanced tool can estimate your performance and suggest more practice questions. We have subscribed you to Daily Prep Questions via email.

Customized
for You

we will pick new questions that match your level based on your Timer History

Track
Your Progress

every week, we’ll send you an estimated GMAT score based on your performance

Practice
Pays

we will pick new questions that match your level based on your Timer History
Not interested in getting valuable practice questions and articles delivered to your email? No problem, unsubscribe here.
Go to My Error Log Learn more
Close
Request Expert Reply
Confirm Cancel
Back to Forum
Create Topic
505-555 (Easy)|   Arithmetic|   Statistics and Sets Problems|                  
User avatar
Thoughtosphere
User avatar
Joined: 02 Jul 2012
Last visit: 24 Nov 2021
Posts: 147
Own Kudos:
816
 [43]
Given Kudos: 84
Location: India
Schools: IIMC  (A)
GMAT 1: 720 Q50 V38
GPA: 2.6
WE:Information Technology (Consulting)
Products:
My Reviews
Schools: IIMC  (A)
GMAT 1: 720 Q50 V38
Posts: 147
Kudos: 816
 [43]
A certain bakery has 6 employees. It pays annual salaries of $14,000 Updated on: 11 Oct 2019, 04:27
Originally posted by Thoughtosphere on 05 Mar 2013, 04:31.
Last edited by Bunuel on 11 Oct 2019, 04:27, edited 2 times in total.
Renamed the topic, edited the question and the tags.
3
Kudos
Add Kudos
40
Bookmarks
Bookmark this Post
00:00
Start Timer
Pause Timer
Resume Timer
Show Answer
Hide
Show
History
C
Be sure to select an answer first to save it in the Error Log before revealing the correct answer (OA)!

Difficulty:

15% (low)

Question Stats:

83% (01:28) correct 17% (01:30) wrong based on 2226 sessions

History

Date
Time
Result
Not Attempted Yet
A certain bakery has 6 employees. It pays annual salaries of $14,000 to each of 2 employees, $16,000 to 1 employee, and $17,000 to each of the remaining 3 employees. The average (arithmetic mean) annual salary of these employees is closest to which of the following?

(A) $15,200
(B) $15,500
(C) $15,800
(D) $16,000
(E) $16,400

Show Spoiler
First and foremost, lets not consider the three zeros, we'll add them afterwards

The generic method to solve this question would be adding the salaries and dividing by 6 - (14 x 2 + 16 + 17 x 3) x1000/6 This would give the right answer.

The other way, to solve this average problem, using lesser calculations is:

Since the salaries are 14, 16, 17, it would mean that the average is going to be more than 14. We have, 14 x 2 and 17 x 3.

Had it been, 14 x 3 and 17 x 3, we could have concluded, the average would be (14 + 17) / 2 = 15.5

But we have 14 x 2 and 16 x 1, which would mean, the average should increase by a small amount. This would eliminate most of the choices - A B E

We are left with 15800 and 16000.

An increase of 2 in the salary, will increase the average by 2 / 6 = .36

Thus you'll get the answer 15.86

We can avoid the last step calculation too, if we observe that the increase is from 14 to 16, and will that result in an increase of .5 ?

If you have some other good and faster method to solve this problem, please share.
ShowHide Answer
Official Answer
C
Trying to understand why the right answer is right? GMAT Club Tests explanations walk through concepts, shortcuts, and common traps on many questions. See how →
Most Helpful Reply
User avatar
KarishmaB
User avatar
Joined: 16 Oct 2010
Last visit: 23 Apr 2026
Posts: 16,441
Own Kudos:
79,413
 [26]
Given Kudos: 485
Location: Pune, India
Expert
Expert reply
Active GMAT Club Expert! Tag them with @ followed by their username for a faster response.
Posts: 16,441
Kudos: 79,413
 [26]
A certain bakery has 6 employees. It pays annual salaries of $14,000 10 Mar 2013, 23:53
11
Kudos
Add Kudos
15
Bookmarks
Bookmark this Post
LalaB
İ am not sure that my method is ideal. So, I will be happy to hear experts' opinion on this -

we have a set 14 14 16 17 17 17
lets derive from it two sets -
1) 12 12 18 18 18 18 2) +2 +2 -2 -3 (+2 means we need +2 to get 14 from 12; -2 means we need -2 to get 16 from 18 etc)

12*2/6 +18*4/6 =4+12=16 ; 16 is the mean of the 1st set

-1/6 is the mean of the 2nd set

16-0.1666= 15.8333

ans is C
Show more

I see what you are doing and it is fine but the logic behind the approach is not very clear to me. (By the way, good call on dropping the '000s. They add no value and just make the solution cumbersome)

If I were to split it into two sets, they would be:
16, 16, 16, 16, 16, 16 - so that I know that the mean here is certainly none other than 16. 16 is the middle number and the means is expected to be something around it.
-2, -2, 0, +1, +1, +1 - because actually the first term is 14 i.e. 2 less and so on.
This adds up to -1 giving an average of -1/6

So average = 16 - 1/6 = 15.8333

(Essentially the same thing)
User avatar
Dipankar6435
User avatar
Joined: 27 Jan 2013
Last visit: 21 Dec 2017
Posts: 58
Own Kudos:
129
 [10]
Given Kudos: 38
Status:Breaking my head!!
Location: India
Concentration: General Management, Operations
Schools: ISB '16 (A) Ross '17 (D)
GMAT 1: 740 Q50 V40
GPA: 3.51
WE:Other (Transportation)
Schools: ISB '16 (A) Ross '17 (D)
GMAT 1: 740 Q50 V40
Posts: 58
Kudos: 129
 [10]
A certain bakery has 6 employees. It pays annual salaries of $14,000 11 Mar 2013, 00:42
8
Kudos
Add Kudos
1
Bookmarks
Bookmark this Post
Thoughtosphere
I came across the following GMATPrep® question:

A certain bakery has 6 employees. It pays annual salaries of $14,000 to each of 2 employees, $16,000 to 1 employee, and $17,000 to each of the remaining 3 employees. The average (arithmetic mean) annual salary of these employees is closest to which of the following?

(A) $15,200
(B) $15,500
(C) $15,800
(D) $16,000
(E) $16,400

Lets try to solve this problem using some unconventional method, to save time.
Show Spoiler
First and foremost, lets not consider the three zeros, we'll add them afterwards

The generic method to solve this question would be adding the salaries and dividing by 6 - (14 x 2 + 16 + 17 x 3) x1000/6 This would give the right answer.

The other way, to solve this average problem, using lesser calculations is:

Since the salaries are 14, 16, 17, it would mean that the average is going to be more than 14. We have, 14 x 2 and 17 x 3.

Had it been, 14 x 3 and 17 x 3, we could have concluded, the average would be (14 + 17) / 2 = 15.5

But we have 14 x 2 and 16 x 1, which would mean, the average should increase by a small amount. This would eliminate most of the choices - A B E

We are left with 15800 and 16000.

An increase of 2 in the salary, will increase the average by 2 / 6 = .36

Thus you'll get the answer 15.86

We can avoid the last step calculation too, if we observe that the increase is from 14 to 16, and will that result in an increase of .5 ?

If you have some other good and faster method to solve this problem, please share.
Show more

I am wondering why we cannot just take the average of the numbers the conventional way instead of looking at novel ways to solve this simple problem :?:
We can ignore the zeroes and just go ahead and compute (14*2 + 16 + 17*3) / 6....which approximately comes to a little less than 16 and we have our answer. Took me less than 30 secs :wink:
General Discussion
User avatar
mau5
User avatar
Verbal Forum Moderator
Joined: 10 Oct 2012
Last visit: 31 Dec 2024
Posts: 478
Own Kudos:
3,387
 [5]
Given Kudos: 141
Posts: 478
Kudos: 3,387
 [5]
A certain bakery has 6 employees. It pays annual salaries of $14,000 05 Mar 2013, 05:16
3
Kudos
Add Kudos
2
Bookmarks
Bookmark this Post
UmangMathur
I came across the following GMATPrep® question:

A certain bakery has 6 employees. It pays annual salaries of $14,000 to each of 2 employees, $16,000 to 1 employee, and $17,000 to each of the remaining 3 employees. The average (arithmetic mean) annual salary of these employees is closest to which of the following?

(A) $15,200
(B) $15,500
(C) $15,800
(D) $16,000
(E) $16,400

Show more

Let the salary for each person be 14. Thus, the bakery ends up getting 2 + 3*3 = 11 as extra. This again has to be divided among 6 people. 12/6 = 2 which makes it 14+2 =16. Thus, as it is 11/6, it will be somewhere close to 16 and less than that. Also, 1/6 = 0.166. Thus 10/6 = 1.66 which gives the final salary after redistribution as 15.66. Thus, the answer is C.
User avatar
LalaB
User avatar
Current Student
Joined: 23 Oct 2010
Last visit: 17 Jul 2016
Posts: 227
Own Kudos:
1,379
Given Kudos: 73
Location: Azerbaijan
Concentration: Finance
Schools: HEC '15 (A)
GMAT 1: 690 Q47 V38
Schools: HEC '15 (A)
GMAT 1: 690 Q47 V38
Posts: 227
Kudos: 1,379
A certain bakery has 6 employees. It pays annual salaries of $14,000 10 Mar 2013, 03:52
Kudos
Add Kudos
Bookmarks
Bookmark this Post
İ am not sure that my method is ideal. So, I will be happy to hear experts' opinion on this -

we have a set 14 14 16 17 17 17
lets derive from it two sets -
1) 12 12 18 18 18 18 2) +2 +2 -2 -3 (+2 means we need +2 to get 14 from 12; -2 means we need -2 to get 16 from 18 etc)

12*2/6 +18*4/6 =4+12=16 ; 16 is the mean of the 1st set

-1/6 is the mean of the 2nd set

16-0.1666= 15.8333

ans is C
User avatar
KarishmaB
User avatar
Joined: 16 Oct 2010
Last visit: 23 Apr 2026
Posts: 16,441
Own Kudos:
79,413
 [3]
Given Kudos: 485
Location: Pune, India
Expert
Expert reply
Active GMAT Club Expert! Tag them with @ followed by their username for a faster response.
Posts: 16,441
Kudos: 79,413
 [3]
A certain bakery has 6 employees. It pays annual salaries of $14,000 11 Mar 2013, 01:26
3
Kudos
Add Kudos
Bookmarks
Bookmark this Post
Dipankar6435

I am wondering why we cannot just take the average of the numbers the conventional way instead of looking at novel ways to solve this simple problem :?:
We can ignore the zeroes and just go ahead and compute (14*2 + 16 + 17*3) / 6....which approximately comes to a little less than 16 and we have our answer. Took me less than 30 secs :wink:
Show more

We most certainly can and it is quite easy to do in this question. Nevertheless, people like to keep a repertoire of various methods that can be used to solve questions of a particular type. Depending on the values given in the question, innovative methods can be much faster than conventional approaches.
User avatar
LalaB
User avatar
Current Student
Joined: 23 Oct 2010
Last visit: 17 Jul 2016
Posts: 227
Own Kudos:
1,379
Given Kudos: 73
Location: Azerbaijan
Concentration: Finance
Schools: HEC '15 (A)
GMAT 1: 690 Q47 V38
Schools: HEC '15 (A)
GMAT 1: 690 Q47 V38
Posts: 227
Kudos: 1,379
A certain bakery has 6 employees. It pays annual salaries of $14,000 11 Mar 2013, 09:05
Kudos
Add Kudos
Bookmarks
Bookmark this Post
Dipankar6435


I am wondering why we cannot just take the average of the numbers the conventional way instead of looking at novel ways to solve this simple problem :?:
We can ignore the zeroes and just go ahead and compute (14*2 + 16 + 17*3) / 6....which approximately comes to a little less than 16 and we have our answer. Took me less than 30 secs :wink:
Show more

Read the article -"Want a 750+? Do this question in 30 seconds", and u will get the answer

https://www.manhattangmat.com/blog/index.php/2013/03/04/want-a-750-do-this-question-in-30-seconds/


to VeritasPrepKarishma
Thanks for checking my approach and giving good advice!
avatar
bytatia
avatar
Joined: 19 Jan 2014
Last visit: 21 Dec 2014
Posts: 21
Own Kudos:
58
Given Kudos: 51
Posts: 21
Kudos: 58
A certain bakery has 6 employees. It pays annual salaries of $14,000 25 Jan 2014, 21:27
Kudos
Add Kudos
Bookmarks
Bookmark this Post
VeritasPrepKarishma
LalaB
İ am not sure that my method is ideal. So, I will be happy to hear experts' opinion on this -

we have a set 14 14 16 17 17 17
lets derive from it two sets -
1) 12 12 18 18 18 18 2) +2 +2 -2 -3 (+2 means we need +2 to get 14 from 12; -2 means we need -2 to get 16 from 18 etc)

12*2/6 +18*4/6 =4+12=16 ; 16 is the mean of the 1st set

-1/6 is the mean of the 2nd set

16-0.1666= 15.8333

ans is C

I see what you are doing and it is fine but the logic behind the approach is not very clear to me. (By the way, good call on dropping the '000s. They add no value and just make the solution cumbersome)

If I were to split it into two sets, they would be:
16, 16, 16, 16, 16, 16 - so that I know that the mean here is certainly none other than 16. 16 is the middle number and the means is expected to be something around it.
-2, -2, 0, +1, +1, +1 - because actually the first term is 14 i.e. 2 less and so on.
This adds up to -1 giving an average of -1/6

So average = 16 - 1/6 = 15.8333

(Essentially the same thing)
Show more

I like this method but I have 2 questions.
1. When is it more time saving to use it? As numbers in these problems allow us to solve this problem very fast with the traditional method.
2. 16 - 1/6= 15.83 it takes me more time to calculate this than 95/6... Is there any faster way to calculate 16-1/6 other then (6*16+1)/6?

Thank you so much.
User avatar
KarishmaB
User avatar
Joined: 16 Oct 2010
Last visit: 23 Apr 2026
Posts: 16,441
Own Kudos:
79,413
 [1]
Given Kudos: 485
Location: Pune, India
Expert
Expert reply
Active GMAT Club Expert! Tag them with @ followed by their username for a faster response.
Posts: 16,441
Kudos: 79,413
 [1]
A certain bakery has 6 employees. It pays annual salaries of $14,000 Updated on: 30 Nov 2023, 09:22
Originally posted by KarishmaB on 27 Jan 2014, 03:04.
Last edited by KarishmaB on 30 Nov 2023, 09:22, edited 1 time in total.
1
Kudos
Add Kudos
Bookmarks
Bookmark this Post
bytatia


I like this method but I have 2 questions.
1. When is it more time saving to use it? As numbers in these problems allow us to solve this problem very fast with the traditional method.
2. 16 - 1/6= 15.83 it takes me more time to calculate this than 95/6... Is there any faster way to calculate 16-1/6 other then (6*16+1)/6?

Thank you so much.
Show more

How about: 147, 156, 160, 143, 180, 167
You might appreciate the deviations method more here. Also, check out this link for more on this method: https://anaprep.com/arithmetic-usefulne ... eviations/

You should know that 1/6 = .166666... or approximately .17
You must memorize some important fraction-percentage equivalents. Check here: https://youtu.be/HxnsYI1Rws8
1/6 is 16.7% which is .167 in decimal form.
avatar
PareshGmat
avatar
Joined: 27 Dec 2012
Last visit: 10 Jul 2016
Posts: 1,531
Own Kudos:
8,277
 [4]
Given Kudos: 193
Status:The Best Or Nothing
Location: India
Concentration: General Management, Technology
WE:Information Technology (Computer Software)
Posts: 1,531
Kudos: 8,277
 [4]
A certain bakery has 6 employees. It pays annual salaries of $14,000 09 Sep 2014, 00:17
3
Kudos
Add Kudos
1
Bookmarks
Bookmark this Post
Thoughtosphere
I came across the following GMATPrep® question:

A certain bakery has 6 employees. It pays annual salaries of $14,000 to each of 2 employees, $16,000 to 1 employee, and $17,000 to each of the remaining 3 employees. The average (arithmetic mean) annual salary of these employees is closest to which of the following?

(A) $15,200
(B) $15,500
(C) $15,800
(D) $16,000
(E) $16,400

Lets try to solve this problem using some unconventional method, to save time.
Show Spoiler
First and foremost, lets not consider the three zeros, we'll add them afterwards

The generic method to solve this question would be adding the salaries and dividing by 6 - (14 x 2 + 16 + 17 x 3) x1000/6 This would give the right answer.

The other way, to solve this average problem, using lesser calculations is:

Since the salaries are 14, 16, 17, it would mean that the average is going to be more than 14. We have, 14 x 2 and 17 x 3.

Had it been, 14 x 3 and 17 x 3, we could have concluded, the average would be (14 + 17) / 2 = 15.5

But we have 14 x 2 and 16 x 1, which would mean, the average should increase by a small amount. This would eliminate most of the choices - A B E

We are left with 15800 and 16000.

An increase of 2 in the salary, will increase the average by 2 / 6 = .36

Thus you'll get the answer 15.86

We can avoid the last step calculation too, if we observe that the increase is from 14 to 16, and will that result in an increase of .5 ?

If you have some other good and faster method to solve this problem, please share.
Show more


Dropping the zero's

\(\frac{14*2 + 16*1 + 17*3}{6} = \frac{95}{6}\)

\(\frac{96}{6} = 16\); so \(\frac{95}{6}\) would be just below 16

15800 fits in best

Answer = C (Solved in 15 seconds)
User avatar
happyface101
User avatar
Joined: 05 Aug 2015
Last visit: 07 May 2016
Posts: 31
Own Kudos:
469
 [2]
Given Kudos: 36
Posts: 31
Kudos: 469
 [2]
A certain bakery has 6 employees. It pays annual salaries of $14,000 10 Apr 2016, 12:59
Kudos
Add Kudos
2
Bookmarks
Bookmark this Post
Someone posted the solution below to the question -- I understood the approach up until the last part of adding 10. Why does adding 10 works / what's the conceptual reason? Thank you!

SOLUTION:
As we are very good at Tables up to 10×10…

4*2=8
6*1=6
7*3=21

Total…35
Divide by 6=5.8333

Add 10…15.8333 …That’s all…
avatar
gatreya14
avatar
Joined: 05 Jun 2016
Last visit: 14 Jun 2020
Posts: 13
Own Kudos:
6
Given Kudos: 772
Posts: 13
Kudos: 6
A certain bakery has 6 employees. It pays annual salaries of $14,000 24 Nov 2016, 05:59
Kudos
Add Kudos
Bookmarks
Bookmark this Post
VeritasPrepKarishma
LalaB
İ am not sure that my method is ideal. So, I will be happy to hear experts' opinion on this -

we have a set 14 14 16 17 17 17
lets derive from it two sets -
1) 12 12 18 18 18 18 2) +2 +2 -2 -3 (+2 means we need +2 to get 14 from 12; -2 means we need -2 to get 16 from 18 etc)

12*2/6 +18*4/6 =4+12=16 ; 16 is the mean of the 1st set

-1/6 is the mean of the 2nd set

16-0.1666= 15.8333

ans is C

I see what you are doing and it is fine but the logic behind the approach is not very clear to me. (By the way, good call on dropping the '000s. They add no value and just make the solution cumbersome)

If I were to split it into two sets, they would be:
16, 16, 16, 16, 16, 16 - so that I know that the mean here is certainly none other than 16. 16 is the middle number and the means is expected to be something around it.
-2, -2, 0, +1, +1, +1 - because actually the first term is 14 i.e. 2 less and so on.
This adds up to -1 giving an average of -1/6

So average = 16 - 1/6 = 15.8333

(Essentially the same thing)
Show more

Hello,

I mistook this problem to be a weighted average problem. As a result, I chose (E) 16,400 since there are 3 people getting paid 17,000$. Can someone please point out the error in this reasoning?
User avatar
KarishmaB
User avatar
Joined: 16 Oct 2010
Last visit: 23 Apr 2026
Posts: 16,441
Own Kudos:
79,413
Given Kudos: 485
Location: Pune, India
Expert
Expert reply
Active GMAT Club Expert! Tag them with @ followed by their username for a faster response.
Posts: 16,441
Kudos: 79,413
A certain bakery has 6 employees. It pays annual salaries of $14,000 24 Nov 2016, 22:53
Kudos
Add Kudos
Bookmarks
Bookmark this Post
gatreya14
VeritasPrepKarishma
LalaB
İ am not sure that my method is ideal. So, I will be happy to hear experts' opinion on this -

we have a set 14 14 16 17 17 17
lets derive from it two sets -
1) 12 12 18 18 18 18 2) +2 +2 -2 -3 (+2 means we need +2 to get 14 from 12; -2 means we need -2 to get 16 from 18 etc)

12*2/6 +18*4/6 =4+12=16 ; 16 is the mean of the 1st set

-1/6 is the mean of the 2nd set

16-0.1666= 15.8333

ans is C

I see what you are doing and it is fine but the logic behind the approach is not very clear to me. (By the way, good call on dropping the '000s. They add no value and just make the solution cumbersome)

If I were to split it into two sets, they would be:
16, 16, 16, 16, 16, 16 - so that I know that the mean here is certainly none other than 16. 16 is the middle number and the means is expected to be something around it.
-2, -2, 0, +1, +1, +1 - because actually the first term is 14 i.e. 2 less and so on.
This adds up to -1 giving an average of -1/6

So average = 16 - 1/6 = 15.8333

(Essentially the same thing)

Hello,

I mistook this problem to be a weighted average problem. As a result, I chose (E) 16,400 since there are 3 people getting paid 17,000$. Can someone please point out the error in this reasoning?
Show more

It is a weighted average problem.
C1 = 14k, w1 = 2
C2 = 16K, w2 = 1
C3 = 17K, w3 = 3

Cavg = (C1*w1 + C2*w2 + C3*w3)/(w1 + w2 + w3)
Cavg = (2*14 + 1*16 + 3*17)/(2 + 1 + 3)
Cavg = 15.833
User avatar
JeffTargetTestPrep
User avatar
Target Test Prep Representative
Joined: 04 Mar 2011
Last visit: 05 Jan 2024
Posts: 2,974
Own Kudos:
8,713
Given Kudos: 1,646
Status:Head GMAT Instructor
Affiliations: Target Test Prep
Expert
Expert reply
Posts: 2,974
Kudos: 8,713
A certain bakery has 6 employees. It pays annual salaries of $14,000 29 Jan 2018, 11:03
Kudos
Add Kudos
Bookmarks
Bookmark this Post
UmangMathur
I came across the following GMATPrep® question:

A certain bakery has 6 employees. It pays annual salaries of $14,000 to each of 2 employees, $16,000 to 1 employee, and $17,000 to each of the remaining 3 employees. The average (arithmetic mean) annual salary of these employees is closest to which of the following?

(A) $15,200
(B) $15,500
(C) $15,800
(D) $16,000
(E) $16,400
Show more

We can set up the weighted average equation:

[2(14,000) + 16,000 + 3(17,000)]/6

(28,0000 + 16,000 + 51,000)/6 = 95,000/6 ≈15,800

Answer: C
User avatar
Basshead
User avatar
Joined: 09 Jan 2020
Last visit: 07 Feb 2024
Posts: 906
Own Kudos:
323
Given Kudos: 431
Location: United States
Posts: 906
Kudos: 323
A certain bakery has 6 employees. It pays annual salaries of $14,000 15 Nov 2020, 07:20
Kudos
Add Kudos
Bookmarks
Bookmark this Post
14 * 2 = 28
17 * 3 = 51
16 * 1 = 16

28 + 51 + 16 = 95

95 / 6 = 15.8

15.8 * 1000 = 15,800

Answer is C.
User avatar
egmat
User avatar
e-GMAT Representative
Joined: 02 Nov 2011
Last visit: 24 Apr 2026
Posts: 5,632
Own Kudos:
33,435
Given Kudos: 707
GMAT Date: 08-19-2020
Expert
Expert reply
Active GMAT Club Expert! Tag them with @ followed by their username for a faster response.
Posts: 5,632
Kudos: 33,435
A certain bakery has 6 employees. It pays annual salaries of $14,000 23 Sep 2025, 00:11
Kudos
Add Kudos
Bookmarks
Bookmark this Post
The weighted average problem can definitely be tricky when you have different numbers of employees earning different salaries. Let me walk you through the core approach to solve this.

Let's think about this step by step:

Notice how this isn't a simple average where you just add the three salary amounts and divide by 3. We need to account for how many employees earn each salary - this is what makes it a weighted average problem.

Step 1: Count your employees and their salaries
Here's what you need to see:
- 2 employees earn $14,000 each
- 1 employee earns $16,000
- 3 employees earn $17,000 each
Total employees = 2 + 1 + 3 = 6 (always verify this!)

Step 2: Calculate the total salary expenditure
Now multiply each salary by the number of people earning it:
\(2 \times 14,000 = 28,000\)
\(1 \times 16,000 = 16,000\)
\(3 \times 17,000 = 51,000\)

Total salaries = \(28,000 + 16,000 + 51,000 = 95,000\)

Step 3: Apply the average formula
Average = Total ÷ Number of items
Average = \(\frac{95,000}{6} = 15,833.33\)

Step 4: Find the closest answer
Your calculated average is $15,833.33. Looking at the choices, $15,800 (Choice C) is only about $33 away - clearly the closest match.

Answer: C

The key insight here is recognizing that you must weight each salary by the number of employees earning it before finding the average. This is fundamentally different from just averaging the three salary values!

You can check out the step-by-step solution on Neuron by e-GMAT to master the weighted average framework systematically - including common trap patterns where students incorrectly average the salary values directly. You can also explore other GMAT official questions with detailed solutions on Neuron for structured practice here.
Moderators:
Bunuel
Math Expert
109830 posts
Krunaal
Tuck School Moderator
852 posts