((((Paging Ron)))

[Guest]

I've read a lot of your quant answer explanations and you seem to have another dimension of understanding. I was curious to know if you had a strategy for attacking certain type of DS problem that I've seen all to often.

I've seen every variation of this problem and the resulting answers are always different.

Here are a few examples:

What was the price at which a construction company sold a certain house?

(1) The company's gross profit on the house was 20 percent of the price they sold the house for.
(2) The price at which they sold the house for $5000 more than their cost of the house.


A companies net income is equal to their revenues minus their costs. By what percent did the companies net income change when both the revenues and costs increased?
(1) The companies gross income increased by 4 percent.
(2) The companies costs increased by 25 percent.

I understand that % Change = (Change - Original) / Original

Sometimes this stuff gets very time consuming and confusing when there are multiple variables within the "Change" and "Original" functions and very few numbers. Sometimes the information given helps us relate some of the variables and other times it looks like it can help, but we're still left with an insufficient answer.

Do you have any tips such as a way to set up a chart and identify that we do/do not have sufficient information, or anything else that will help us avoid these time destroying headaches?

[StaceyKoprince]

Please cite the source (author) of this problem. We cannot reply unless a source is cited (and, if no source is cited, we will have to delete the post!). Thanks.