A number of oranges are to be distributed evenly among a number of baskets. Each basket will contain at least one orange. If there are 20 oranges to be distributed, what is the number of oranges per basket?

(1) If the number of baskets were halved and all other conditions remained the same, there would be twice as many oranges in every remaining basket.

(2) If the number of baskets were doubled, it would no longer be possible to place at least one orange in every basket.

The answer mentioned is that statement 2 alone is sufficient. However, if I consider the first statement that halving the number of baskets results in twice the oranges, I still get the answer - since there's only 1 set of numbers in the factors of 20 that satisfies this rule .... Confused what am I doing wrong, could you help please?

Check out this thread and please let us know if you need more help: oranges-only-t11074.html

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Jamie Nelson
ManhattanGMAT Instructor

OK, so I'm not the only one who's confused by this question.

The question stem is essentially this equation: 20/b=R. b = baskets, R = oranges per basket.

Statement 1 gives this equation: 20/0.5b=2R. Isolating b, you get R/5.

Substituting R/5 for b in the original equation of 20/b=R, you get R=10.

It seems to make sense too. 10 oranges per basket means 2 baskets. If you half 2 baskets to 1 basket, you get 20 oranges per basket.

Can someone explain the error I'm making? I think it's something totally basic that I'm overlooking...

Thank you.

b does not equal R/5. check your algebra. remember, b and .5 are in the denominator..

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Tim Sanders
Manhattan GMAT Instructor