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what is the question asking ?

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anoo.anand
 Post subject: what is the question asking ?
 Post Posted: Mon Oct 12, 2009 11:33 am 
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Students


Posts: 74
Country ---amount- recycled---------amount disposed of
-------------------------------------------------------

A------------16700-------------------- 142800

B-------------8800----------------------48000

C------------13000----------------------51400

D-------------3900----------------------20300

E-------------3300----------------------16200



The table above shows the amount of waste material, in tons, recycled by each of five counties in a single year and the amount of waste material, also in tons, that was disposed of in landfills by the five counties in that year. Which county had the lowest ratio of waste material disposed of to waste material recycled in the year reported in the table?
a) A
b) B
c) C
d) D
e) E


hi my only question is which ration is the question asking ???

can't figure that out.

Answer is C
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nitin_prakash_khanna
 Post subject: Re: what is the question asking ?
 Post Posted: Mon Oct 12, 2009 1:24 pm 
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Students


Posts: 68
Question requires us to calculate the ratio =
amount disposed / amount recycled.

A. 142800 / 16700 = Between 8 and 9 (no short cut just divided high level)

B. 48000 / 8800 = Between 5 & 6

C. 51400 / 13000 = Less Than 4 ( 13000 * 4 = 52000)

D. 20300 / 3900 = More Than 5

E. 16200 / 3300 = CLose to 5 ( 3300 * 5 = 16500)

Clearly C is the lowest. I think most of the time goes in calculating A, rest you can still estimate quickly.
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anoo.anand
 Post subject: Re: what is the question asking ?
 Post Posted: Mon Oct 12, 2009 1:47 pm 
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Students


Posts: 74
correct.. i dont know what i was thinking.. :)

and when i asked the same question to some more guys... they also reversed the ratio :))
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RonPurewal
 Post subject: Re: what is the question asking ?
 Post Posted: Sat Oct 24, 2009 7:29 am 
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ManhattanGMAT Staff


Posts: 6765
Quote:
I think most of the time goes in calculating A, rest you can still estimate quickly.


well, you would do good to look over the numbers before you start diving into calculations.

clearly (a) contains obnoxious numbers FOR THE PRECISE PURPOSE OF GETTING YOU TO WASTE YOUR TIME, if you just forge ahead and start calculating without looking at anything else.

if you look at the other choices, rough estimation will show you that they are in the 4-5-6 range.

looking back at (a), it's clearly bigger than that. if the right hand side were 167,000, it would be 10:1. and the right-hand side is pretty close to that big. so there's no need to calculate (a) at all, much less to throw a whole bunch of time at it.

takeaway:
if a problem contains a whole bunch of calculations that have to be done, then you should LOOK FOR THE EASIEST CALCULATIONS, AND DO THEM FIRST.

takeaway #2:
there is no law requiring you to deal with choice (a) first.
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