pikachu wrote:
In a certain class of students, 25% received A’s on the final exam and 2/3 of these students received A’s in the class as a whole. If 15 students in the class received A’s on the final exam but did not receive an A in the class, how many students did not receive an A on the final exam?
A. 45
B. 60
C. 105
D. 135
E. 180
A. 45
B. 60
C. 105
D. 135
E. 180
Finally after hammering through the confusing text and spending a ton of time
I was able to figure out an easy way to solve this problem by using the matrix approach. Lets set up a matrix as in the attachment:Since the problem involves a fraction 2/3 and a percent 25%, the best way to move forward is to convert the 25% into a fraction = 1/4. Note the denominator of the two fractions would be 1/3*1/4 = 1/12. So let the total number of students in the class be 12x. Hence the number of students who got an A on the final exam would be 3x (as we are told that 25% of the total population received an A on the final exam). We also know that the number of students who did get an A on the final exam but did not get an A in the class = 15 = x. So we can simply use this knowledge to calculate 9x = 15*9 = 135. Answer D.