Hi,

Here's the question: Jane has to pain a cylindrical column that is 14 ft high and that has a circular base with a radius of 3 ft. If one bucket of pain will cover 10(pi) sq ft, how many buckets does Jane need to buy in order to paint the column, including top and bottom?

I got 10.2(pi) buckets, which in the answer explanation is mathematically correct. However, the answer given is 11 buckets, which is what you get when you round up 10.2 buckets to the nearest whole bucket. The reason stated in the guide is that paintbuckets are not sold in fractions of a bucket. I understand the rationale for this, but I got a little confused because doesn't Home Depot or Loews or one of those kind of stores sell paint by the ounce (hence, fraction of a bucket)?

My question is this: What if question #9 showed up on the actual GMAT and among the answers choices were, say, (A) 10.2 buckets or (B) 11 buckets. Without the question explicitly saying that buckets cannot be sold in fractions, are we supposed to know that we should round up to the nearest bucket?

Thanks!

If the test lists the exact amount, that will be the right answer. If the test wants you to approximate, or round up to the nearest whole bucket, it will actually say something like "what is the minimum number of full buckets Jane must buy in order to ensure she has enough paint?" Or something like that. They won't try to trick you in that way. :)

Whew. One less thing to worry about. Thanks, Stacey!

You're welcome!