Question

In Green Glen Layout last July, what was the average (arithmetic mean) home sale price?
(1) In Green Glen Layout last July, there were 100 homes sold for a total of $51 million.
(2) In Green Glen Layout last July, condominiums accounted for 60% of the home sales, and the average condominium price was $450,000.

• A. if the question can be answered by using any of the statements alone but not by using the other statement alone.
• B. if the question can be answered by using either of the statements alone.
• C. if the question can be answered only by using both the statements together.
• D. if the question cannot be answered

Answer 1

The correct option is D

if the question cannot be answered

A suitable rephrase of this question is "What was thesum of the homes sale prices, and how many homes were sold?”
Statement (1):Insufficient
Seems SUFFICIENT as this statement tells us the sum of the home sale prices and the
number of homes sold. Thus, the average home price is $51,000,000/100=$510,000.
But we are not sure how many homes were there overall (may be more than 100). So
INSUFFICIENT.
Statement (2) INSUFFICIENT:
This statement tells us the average condominium price, but not all of
the homes sold in Green Glen Layout last July were condominiums. From this statement, we don't know anything about the other 40% of homes sold in Green Glen Layout, so we cannot calculate theaverage home sale price

We have some information about the ratio of number of condominiums to noncondominiums
sold, 60%:40%, or 6:4, or 3:2, which could be used to pick working
numbers for the total number of homes sold. However, the average still cannot be
calculated because we don't have any information about the non-condominium prices.

The correct answer is option (d)