Bunuel
Three friends divided a bag of chocolates so that David received a fifth the number of chocolates that Fouad did, and Stina received 80 percent of the total number of chocolates. What is the ratio of the number of chocolates Stina received to the number that David received?
(A) 4 : 3
(B) 8 : 5
(C) 8 : 1
(D) 24 : 1
(E) 80 : 1
Certainly no need for variables! Is there some piece of information missing that would make this problem really easy? What if we just knew how many pieces of chocolate there were in total? That makes this a "Hidden Plug In" question. Let's just make up what we wish we knew.
How about 100 total pieces of chocolate? Stina gets 80. That leaves 20. David gets 1/5 of Fouad, so Fouad gets 5/6ths of 20...ugh, I don't like that number, but let's just ballpark it to 16 and see if we can eliminate four answer choices. Fouad gets 16 of the 20, so David gets 4. Stina:David = 80:4. A, B, C, and E are definitely wrong.
Answer choice D.
Or, if you really hate the ballparking element (I strongly suggest you learn it!!), we could just start over and multiply everything by 6 to get rid of the 1/6ths issue. Total chocolates is 600. Stina gets 480. Fouad gets 5/6ths of what's left, so 100. David gets 20. Stina:David = 480:20 = 24:1.
Answer choice D.
Ballparking is a REALLY useful skill, so definitely worthwhile to master it. But even if we happen to pick an initial number that turns out to be a pain in the butt and don't like the idea of ballparking, it's still really fast for us to just pick a different number once we see how to pick a better one. Trying two numbers is still probably faster than doing the algebra and I'd bet that for almost everyone, this method is less likely to lead to a careless mistake than is the algebra.
ThatDudeKnowsBallparking
ThatDudeKnowsHiddenPlugIn