Making rate questions easier to solve

CAT Exam
The goal, when preparing for the CAT, isn’t to internalize hundreds of strategies; it’s to absorb a handful that will prove helpful on a variety of questions. Try the following question: It takes Carlos 9 minutes to drive from home to work at an average rate of 22 miles per hour.  How many minutes will it take Carlos to cycle from home to work along the same route at an average rate of 6 miles per hour? (A) 26 (B) 33 (C) 36 (D) 44 (E) 48 This question doesn’t seem that hard, conceptually speaking, but watch how much easier it is if we remember our reciprocal relationship between rate and time. We have two scenarios here. In Scenario 1, the time is 9 minutes and the rate is 22 mph. In Scenario 2, the rate is 6 mph, and we want the time, which we’ll call ‘T.” The ratio of the rates of the two scenarios is 22/6. Well, if the times have a reciprocal relationship, we know the ratio of the times must be 6/22. So we know that 9/T = 6/22. Cross-multiply to get 6T = 9*22. Divide both sides by 6 to get T = 9*22/6. We can rewrite this as T = (9*22)/(3*2) = 3*11 = 33, so the answer is B. The other point to stress here is that there isn’t anything magical about rate questions. In any equation that takes the form a*b = c, a and b will have a reciprocal relationship, provided that we hold c constant. Take “quantity * unit price = total cost”, for example. We can see intuitively that if we double the price, we’ll cut the quantity of items we can afford in half. Again, this relationship can be exploited to save time. Take the following data sufficiency question: Pat bought 5 lbs. of apples. How many pounds of pears could Pat have bought for the same amount of money?  (1) One pound of pears costs $0.50 more than one pound of apples.  (2) One pound of pears costs 1 1/2 times as much as one pound of apples.  Statement 1 can be tested by picking numbers. Say apples cost $1/pound. The total cost of 5 pounds of apples would be $5.  If one pound of pears cost $.50 more than one pound of apples, then one pound of pears would cost $1.50. The number of pounds of pears that could be purchased for $5 would be 5/1.5 = 10/3. So that’s one possibility. Now say apples cost $2/pound. The total cost of 5 pounds of apples would be $10. If one pound of pears cost $.50 more than one pound of apples, then one pound of pears would cost $2.50. The number of pounds of pears that could be purchased for $10 would be 10/2.5 = 4. Because we get different results, this Statement alone is not sufficient to answer the question. Statement 2 tells us that one pound of pears costs 1 ½ times (or 3/2 times) as much as one pound of apples. Remember that reciprocal relationship! If the ratio of the price per pound for pears and the price per pound for apples is 3/2, then the ratio of their respective quantities must be 2/3. If we could buy five pounds of apples for a given cost, then we must be able to buy (2/3) * 5 = (10/3) pounds of pears for that same cost. Because we can find a single unique value, Statement 2 alone is sufficient to answer the question, and we know our answer must be B. Takeaway: Remember that in “rate” questions, time and rate will have a reciprocal relationship, and that in “total cost” questions, quantity and unit price will have a reciprocal relationship. Now the time you save on these problem-types can be allocated to other questions, creating a virtuous cycle in which your time management, your accuracy, and your confidence all improve in turn.

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