Last Updated on May 3, 2023
GMAT OFFICIAL GUIDE PS
Solution:
We are given that 60 percent of the voters are Democrats and the rest are Republicans. This means that 40 percent are Republicans. We also know that 75% of the voters who are Democrats and 20% of the voters who are Republicans are expected to vote for candidate A.
The easiest way to solve this problem is to assume that the total number of registered voters is 100 (We could use other numbers, but 100 is an easy number to work with in percentage problems).
We know that 60% of the registered voters are Democrat and 40% are Republicans, so there are 60 Democrat registered voters and 40 Republican registered voters.
Now, since 75% of the 60 Democrat registered voters are expected to vote for Candidate A, we know that 0.75 x 60 = 45 Democrats are expected to vote for Candidate A. Similarly, because 20% of the 40 Republican registered voters are expected to vote for Candidate A, we know that 0.2 x 40 = 8 Republicans are expected to vote for Candidate A.
Thus, there are 45 + 8 = 53 voters expected to vote for Candidate A. Remember, we initially used 100 as the total number of voters, so this means that 53 out of 100, or 53% of the voters, are expected to vote for Candidate A.
Answer: B
