Last Updated on May 5, 2023
GMAT OFFICIAL GUIDE PS –
Solution:
Although we could plug in a real value for d, the problem can be just as easily solved by setting up equations. So let’s start by defining some variables. Since we are given that David has d books, we can use variable d to represent how many books David has.
number of books David has = d
number of books Jeff has = j
number of books Paula has = p
We are given that David has 3 times as many books as Jeff. We can now express this in an equation.
d = 3j
d/3 = j
We are also given that David has ½ as many books as Paula. We can also express this in an equation.
d = (1/2)p
2d = p
Notice that we immediately solved for j in terms of d and p in terms of d. Getting j and p in terms of d is useful when setting up our final expression. We need to determine, in terms of d, the sum of the number of books for David, Jeff, and Paula. Thus, we have:
d + d/3 + 2d
Getting a common denominator of 3, we have:
3d/3 + d/3 + 6d/3 = 10d/3 = 10/3*d
Answer: C
