Susan and Iman are each typing a term paper. Who finishes

Question

Susan and Iman are each typing a term paper. Who finishes first?

(1) Susan begins typing at 9 a.m. and finishes at 5 p.m.
(2) Iman finishes typing 6 hours after she starts.

metallicafan · Accepted Answer

I don't agree. The question doesn't ask who types faster . It asks who finishes first. So, in (1) + (2) 9:00 am + 6 hours = 3:00 pm. Therefore, Iman finishes first. IMO is C. I think I deserve kudos 8-)

Bunuel · Answer

Straight E, as we cannot calculate the time when Iman finishes typing.

sandeep800 · Answer

is this question correct?i mean if some other detail may be missing?

what level of question can be this?

u0422811 · Answer

Agree with the others it has to be E there is insufficient information to correctly solve.

Bunuel · Answer

"Straight E, as  we can not calculate the time when Iman finishes typing. " Where did I mention anything about typing speed?

Next: nowhere in the question is stated that they both start at the same time. Iman might have started at 9:00am or 5:00PM or any other time... So, again: we can not calculate the time when Iman finishes typing.

Answer is E.

vigneshpandi · Answer

I don't agree. The question doesn't ask who types faster . It asks who finishes first. So, in (1) + (2) 9:00 am + 6 hours = 3:00 pm. Therefore, Iman finishes first. IMO is C. I think I deserve kudos 8-)

"Straight E, as we can not calculate the time when Iman finishes typing. " Where did I mention anything about typing speed? Next: nowhere in the question is stated that they both start at the same time. Iman might have started at 9:00am or 5:00PM or any other time... So, again: we can not calculate the time when Iman finishes typing. Answer is E. I also Chose C, because assuming IMAN is a male..sounds funny huh...(generally IMAN is a male's name) So in the question it states that IMAN finishes typing 6 hrs after she starts.. Here she referes to SUSAN... So 9+6 = 3 PM.... THis is a gender issue:d they should have stated their genders:d...I know we should no assume anything in GMAT, and this question is an example

metallicafan · Answer

Thanks vigneshpandi for your support! hehe

Bunuel · Answer

OA for this question is E, not C.

Next "she" in statement (2) can not refer to "Susan" in statement (1).

Also google images for Iman, you'll be surprised with the results if you think that Iman is mostly male's name (though you are right it's girl's name as well as boy's name).

IndianGuardian · Answer

I have a question here, for the second statement, it says "Iman finishes typing 6 hours after she starts."

As a general GMAT rule, if in the Quant section, there is pronoun ambiguity as above, do we assume 'she' refers to someone or take it as a trick by GMAT> I understand in this case the 'she' is being referred to Iman hence the answer 'E' but lets say if this was not the case, in that case what does one have to assume?

shanghaizzle · Answer

In DS questions, statements 1 and 2 are completely separate and will never refer to each other.

So in this situation "she" must refer to someone in statement 2 or someone in the question prompt.

mehtakaustubh · Answer

E...
 Susan begins typing at 9 a.m. and finishes at 5 p.m. 
Here it is not known if susan finishes the work on same day or some other day
  Iman finishes typing 6 hours after she starts.  
it is not known when iman starts typing...
Considering both arguments together still the information is not sufficient.

iwillcrackgmat · Answer

we can calculate the time taken by each person
but we dont know when they start working and hence we cannot determine who will finish the work first.

+1 kudos if you like this post

GreginChicago · Answer

Thanks a lot for the pointer.
Personally, I have known a woman named Iman so I initially thought that the pronoun was referring to Susan in the 1st statement. To me and without that rule of thumb - the correct answer choice is debatable.

Amlu95 · Answer

I still think there is a lot of ambiguity in this question. Though Bunuel rightly says, we cannot link statements 1 and 2. 2 and the prompt can still def be linked. I mean there are only 2 ppl we are talking about here.

GMATmronevsall · Answer

Easy E.
they are doing the same work, but we don't know when Iman started.

rounakkedia172 · Answer

I believe it is E, as the question asks  who finishes first  not  who finishes faster.

tomcruiseh · Answer

I think the whole problem is because of second option : "Iman finishes typing 6 hours after she starts.". Here, it kind of feels that the "She refers" to susan here.

Fdambro294 · Answer

So, I hope I'm understanding this correctly.....

The reason why we choose (E) is because "she" can only refer to Iman.

What if some of us aren't as "cultured" as others (*cough*) and didn't know Iman was necessarily a female's name?

The Takeaway would then be stay within each Statement alone when you are analyzing each separately. "She" can not refer to Susan because we are analyzing Statement 2 alone and separately.

Correct or Wrong? Any feedback would be helpful.

Pastillita · Answer

(1) is clearly INSUFFICIENT because we do not know anything about when Iman finishes 
(2) is clearly insufficient because we do not know anything about when Susan finishes, and on top of that, we don't know anything about the time at which Iman started and finished.

(1) and (2) are clearly insufficient, as Susan has not necessarily been typing for 8 hours, she could have theoretically started at 9am on Monday and finished at 5pm on Tuesday, or even Wednesday for all we know. This itself is enough to rule C out, answer is E. In addition to this, say Susan had been typing from 9am to 5pm within the same day, then if Iman finishes in 6 hours, she could have started at 9am and finished at 3pm (which means she finishes fast than Susan) but she could have also started at 4pm and finished at 10pm (which means Susan finished first because she started early enough). These differing results also rule C our further.

Susan and Iman are each typing a term paper. Who finishes

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Susan and Iman are each typing a term paper. Who finishes

Prep Toolkit

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