There are 15 children going to a movie. Tickets cost 5 dollars each

Question

There are 15 children going to a movie. Tickets cost 5 dollars each, popcorn costs $3 per serving, and candy costs $2.50 per serving. If each child gets one snack, popcorn or candy, and $21 are spent for popcorn, what is the average (arithmetic mean) cost of the trip per child to the nearest cent?

A. $2.73
B. $3.86
C. $5.96
D. $7.70
E. $7.73

A. $2.73
B. $3.86
C. $5.96
D. $7.70
E. $7.73

pushpitkc · Answer

There are 15 children going to the movie, and each must have a snack

Given data : 
Money spent on popcorn : 21$
Cost of a popcorn : 3$

We can infer the people eating popcorn is  \frac{21}{3}  or 7
Hence people eating candy is 8, money spent is 20$(8 * $2.5)

After we figure this out, without making any calculations, we can infer the cost of food to be between 2.5 and 3.
The reason for that is there are almost the same number of people eating each snack
Hence the price of food is in that range,2.73
Price spent per child = Price of ticket+Price of food = 5+2.73 = 7.73(Option E)

Thanks for pointing out the error. Please find corrected solution

mihir0710 · Answer

Buddy I think you missed the price of the ticket per person ..
So 2.73 + 5 = 7.73
Answer : E

pushpitkc · Answer

Thanks, made the change to the solution!

ScottTargetTestPrep · Answer

We are given that 15 children are going to a movie and that tickets costs $5 each, popcorn costs $3 per serving, and candy costs $2.50 per serving. Each child gets 1 snack and $21 is spent on popcorn. We need to determine the average cost per child for the trip.

Since 21 dollars is spent on popcorn, 21/3 = 7 children purchased popcorn. Thus, 8 children purchased candy, which means 8 x 2.5 = $20 was spent on candy. We also know that 15 x 5 = $75 dollars was spent on tickets. Let’s now determine the average amount of money spent per child:

(21 + 20 + 75)/15 = 116/15

≈ 7.73

Answer: E

GMATinsight · Answer

$21 for popcorn = 21/3 = 7 servings of popcorn

i.e. remaining 8 children got one candy each = 8*2.5 = $20

Ticket cost = 15*5 = $75

Average cost = total cost / total children = (75+21+20)/15 = $7.73

Answer: Option E

Blackbox · Answer

The long division of 116/15 took a while only because there was another option (D) that was close to the answer. I always thought GMAT spaces answer choices fairly widely, no?

bumpbot · Answer

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There are 15 children going to a movie. Tickets cost 5 dollars each

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