The ratio of the women to the men in a group of people is 2

Question

The ratio of the women to the men in a group of people is 2 to 1. What fraction of them smoke?

1) 68 percent of the women smoke
2) 32 percent of the men do smoke

BG · Answer

Hmmm......Interesting.
I tried diff numbers for ratios of man and women, and get cases where numbers should be rounded.
Seems like E)

alimad · Answer

The ratio of the women to the men in a group of people is 2 to 1. What fraction of them smoke? 


Since statement (A) reveals the percentage of the women who smoke, we don't need to look further. Any population that contains women can be used to derive the number. 

Statment (B) by itself is also useful since it reveals the percentage of women who smokes. 

I would say (D).

shevy · Answer

I agree with C :wink:

pesquadero · Answer

Can you elaborate how you are getting C?

Zooroopa · Answer

I doubt if this explanation is correct. We need to find the percentage of smokers in the  group  and not the percetange of smokers among the  men  or the  women .

if w = # of women, m = # of men and g = total # of people in the group then w/m = 2 ==> w/g = 2/3 and m/g = 1/3 (as w + m = g)

Now evaluate the conditions. Let the # of women smokers be Ws and the # of men smokers be Ms.

1. Ws/w = .68 (gives percentage of women smokers in the overall population but not the percentage of men smokers).
2. Ms/m = .32 (gives percentage of men smokers in the overall population but not the percentage of women smokers).

So A and B are ruled out.

Combine them and you would get Ws = (.68*2/3)g and Ms = ( .32*1/3)g. And we get the overall percentage of smokers. So ans is  C .

alimad · Answer

Very good explaination. Thanks I agree. C it is..

ywilfred · Answer

Total number of people = n
# of women = 2n/3
# of men = n/3

St1:
34n/75 women smoke. We have no details about the # of men who smoke. Insufficient.

St2:
8n.75 men smoke. We have no details about the # of women who smoke. Insufficient.

Using St1 and St2:
We can now derive the fraction of smokers in the group. Sufficient.

Ans C

Yurik79 · Answer

lets pick numbers
w=100
m=50
from 1 st 68 women are smokers nothing about men
from 2 st 16 men are smokers
C it is

The ratio of the women to the men in a group of people is 2

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