Three Children Alice, Brain & Chris have a total of

Question

Three Children Alice, Brain & Chris have a total of $1.20 between them. Does Chris have the most money?

i) Alice has 35 cents.
ii) Chris has 40 cents.

I'm confused with the explanation given in the book.

Is B actually right as they claim?

The best option B can give you is all three have the same amount of money, i.e $0.40

Can someone help!!!

IanStewart · Answer

With Statement 2, either they each have different amounts of money, in which case we can be absolutely certain that Chris does *not* have the most money, or they each have the same amount of money - 40 cents each. Then the question becomes, essentially, "If Alice, Brian and Chris each have 40 cents, who has the most money?" I have no idea what that question even means. Is the answer 'none of them', or is it 'all of them'? Can we say that Chris has the most money, since no one has less than he has, or does Chris not have the most because no one has more than he has? That's not a question of mathematics; it's a question of semantics, and that's not what the GMAT is testing.

You could justify answer choice B here, and you could justify answer choice C here. I don't think it's at all a good question, and it just seems like an example of a prep company trying too hard to be 'tricky'. You'll never find a question so ambiguous on the real GMAT.

qweert · Answer

Thank you..

Even i though the question was too ambiguous...

utfan2424 · Answer

I think B gives enough information to establish the answer to this yes/no D.S. question. If It's given that he has $0.40, either 1) they all of same amount of money or 2) someone has less and someone has more money that he does. Either way, the answer is "no", Chris doesn't have the MOST amount of money.

ezhilkumarank · Answer

Statement B:

Choices for the money (in cents) could be

Alice -- Brain -- Chris ------ Does chris have the most money
 0 80 40 No
 80 0 40 No
 60 20 40 No 
 10 70 40 No
 40 40 40 No
To make Chris have the most money, the distribution should be 
 
 39 39 40 -- Yes, but the some does not match up to 120 cents.

Hence answer B alone is sufficient.

bschool83 · Answer

Three children, Alice, Brian, and Chris have a total of $1.20 between them. Does Chris have the most money?

(1) Alice has 35 cents.

(2) Chris has 40 cents.

bodleyev · Answer

A + B + C = 120 , is  C > A  and  C>B ?

1)  A = 35 , therefore  B + C = 120 - 35 = 85 .

It could be that  C = 84  and  A = 1 , or that  C = 1  and  B = 84 .  C  is greater than both  A  and  B  in one scenario, but not in the other. Insufficient.

2)  C = 40 , therefore  A + B = 120 - 40 = 80 .

This means that the average of  A  and  B  is  40 , and either  A = B = 40 , or  A > 40 > B , or  B > 40 > A .

Either way,  C  is NOT greater than both  A  and  B .

Sufficient.

B

Mikeclapson · Answer

I have to disagree. In the case where each have 40c ie you have a set (40, 40, 40) they each individually have the most (ie the highest value = 40) and it so happens they each individually have the least, again 40.

Since this provides two cases, Brian having the most when they all share the most (similar to tied for 1st place - they are equally best) and Brian not having the most when any other values are chosen, one requires both (1) and (2) to determine if Chris does/doesn't have the most.

Clearly this is a definition debate around "most" and ties for most, and the question would likely (hopefully) be thrown out by the gmac folks!

Bunuel · Answer

This is a poor quality question because of its ambiguous wording.

For statement (2) if all 3 children have 40 cents, does that mean that all of them have the most money or none of them have the most money? How are we supposed to treat ties?

So, I'd advice not to study this question at all.

monu1101 · Answer

Answer should be C, what is the OA?

The explanation is in either of the case A or B, Chris may or may not have the most money.

Bunuel · Answer

Welcome to GMAt Club. Please check this: three-children-alice-brian-and-chris-have-a-total-of-117635.html#p1066131 So as you can see it's a poorly designed question, and one can justify B as well as C for it, and that's exactly why this kind of question has zero chances of appearing on the real test. By the way the OA for this question is B, though it's completely irrelevant since as discussed the question is quite ambiguous. Hope it helps.

Three Children Alice, Brain & Chris have a total of

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