In 2025, Orion Labs recorded a number for each of the 12 months to

Question

In 2025, Orion Labs recorded a number for each of the 12 months to represent that month’s profit or loss. A profit was recorded as a positive number, a loss was recorded as a negative number, and a break even month was recorded as 0. Did Orion Labs have more months with a profit than months with a loss in 2025?

(1) The sum of the 12 recorded numbers is less than 0.
(2) The median of the 12 recorded numbers is less than 0.

Bunuel · Accepted Answer

GMAT Club Official Solution:

In 2025, Orion Labs recorded a number for each of the 12 months to represent that month’s profit or loss. A profit was recorded as a positive number, a loss was recorded as a negative number, and a break even month was recorded as 0. Did Orion Labs have more months with a profit than months with a loss in 2025?

(1) The sum of the 12 recorded numbers is less than 0.

This does not answer the question. For example, there could be 11 months with small profits and 1 month with a very large loss, so the total is still negative but the answer to the question is YES. Or there could be 12 months with losses, so the total is negative and the answer is NO. Not sufficient.

(2) The median of the 12 recorded numbers is less than 0.

With 12 numbers, the median is the average of the 6th and 7th numbers in the sorted list. If the median is less than 0, then the 6th number must be less than 0, so at least 6 months are losses. Then the number of profit months cannot be more than the number of loss months. So the answer is No.

Answer: B.

Adit_ · Answer

Statement 1:
This statement says about sum.
Hmm interesting however I can have a large negative number and then slowly compensate for the negative with smaller positive number.
OR
I can make no.of negative=positive and their absolute values the same as well

2 diff possibilities (or more) Thus
NOT SUFFICIENT

Statement 2:
Median always gives us information about any inequalities more or less. Does it do it here?
If median is less than 0 then 6th+7th/2<0
For this to happen 6th number is -ve for sure
7th maybe positive or negative BUT 1-6 is negative thus atleast 50% are negative

Now, can no.of profit be greater than negative when negative has 50%?
No. Thus
SUFFICIENT

Answer: Option B IMO

mst2277 · Answer

Setup: 12 numbers, which can be positive, zero or negative. Q: #positive > #negative? #Positive >6

(1) The sum of the 12 recorded numbers is less than 0.
The sum concerns the magnitude of positiveness or negativeness. i.e. one super negative number (-100) can offset 11 slightly positive number (1*11), however it gives us a # positive number># negative number
Insufficient.

(2) The median of the 12 recorded numbers is less than 0.
Tricky one. The median is less than 0, which means at least 6 numbers are less than 0. 
It means # positive number at most 6, which means cannot be larger than 6.
Sufficient

Edskore · Answer

Great Data Sufficiency question — it tests a subtle but important concept in Statistics and Sets Problems: the difference between what a sum tells you versus what a median tells you about the distribution of a dataset.

Key concept being tested: Properties of the median in an even-sized set, and how the median pins down a minimum count in a way that the sum cannot.

Step 1 — Set up the problem.
We have 12 numbers. Each is positive (profit), negative (loss), or zero (break-even). The question asks: are there more months with a positive number than months with a negative number?

Step 2 — Evaluate Statement (1): The sum of the 12 numbers is less than 0.
The sum being negative does NOT tell us how many months were profitable. One month with a large loss (say, -1000) can drag the sum below zero even if 11 months were profitable. Alternatively, all 12 months could be loss months. Not sufficient.

Common trap: Students instinctively think "sum negative → more losses." But one huge negative number can overpower 11 small positive ones.

Step 3 — Evaluate Statement (2): The median of the 12 numbers is less than 0.
With 12 numbers, the median is the average of the 6th and 7th values when sorted in ascending order. For the median to be less than 0, both the 6th and 7th values (in sorted order) must be negative — otherwise their average could not be negative. So positions 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12 are all ≤ 0, meaning at least 7 months recorded a loss or break-even. At most 5 months could be profitable. So the number of profit months (at most 5) cannot exceed the number of loss months (at least 6). The answer to the question is definitively NO. Sufficient.

Step 4 — Conclusion.
Answer: B (Statement 2 alone is sufficient)

Takeaway: In DS questions with an even number of data points, the median's sign constrains the distribution far more tightly than the sum — keep this in your toolkit for Statistics and Sets Problems questions.

In 2025, Orion Labs recorded a number for each of the 12 months to

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GMAT Data Sufficiency (DS) Questions

In 2025, Orion Labs recorded a number for each of the 12 months to

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