I got confused with Word problems

Question

Hi everyone,

Anyone could explain to me the following sentence:

6000 seats with twice as many lower level seats occupied as upper level seats.

This sentence means the lower seats are 4000 and upper seats are 2000 OR the upper seats are 4000 and the lower seats are 2000.

I need help with having a general rule PLZ.

Thanks in advance,

rakana · Answer

What I gathered is that upper seats are 4000 and the lower seats are 2000. Here Total is 6000, which is understood.
Twice as many X as Y means 2X = Y

Therefore, X+Y = 6000
OR X + 2X = 6000
OR X = 2000
Here X is Lower level.

ScottTargetTestPrep · Answer

If you let L = lower level seats and U = upper level seats you have:

L + U = 6000

And

L = 2U

Hope this helps!

EMPOWERgmatRichC · Answer

Hi mohd_int,

GMAT questions are carefully-worded (so that they convey specific information to the reader), but there is some unclear language in this prompt that makes 'translating' it into math equations a bit problematic. Are we meant to assume that there are 6000 TOTAL seats (with some occupied and some NOT occupied) OR that there are 6000 OCCUPIED seats?
 
In the first option, there are 4 variables (upper occupied, upper not-occupied, lower occupied and lower not-occupied) that sum to 6000 and we can create the equation (lower occupied) = 2(upper occupied).

In the second option, there are 2 variables (upper and lower) that sum to 6000 and we can create the equation (lower) = 2(upper).

GMAT assassins aren't born, they're made,
Rich

I got confused with Word problems

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