Critical Reasoning Questions and Answers


11)

Alberto buys a car from Juan and sells it to Antonio.How much did Juan pay for the car?

Statement 1 - Juan sold it to Alberto at 20% profit and Antonio bought it for$10,000.
Statement 2 - Alberto sold it to Antonio for 10% profit.

Which of the statements above make it possible to answer the question.


Explanation: 

To calculate how much Juan initially paid for the car we need to know the final price and the margins made by both Juan and Alberto.
Statement 1 gives us both the final sale price and the margin made by Juan. Therefore Statement 1 by itself is not sufficient.
Statement 2 gives us only the margin made by Alberto. Therefore Statement 2 by itself is not sufficient.
Both statements together do give us all of the information we need.

Option C is the correct answer.

12)

What percentage is Jane's salary of Sally's salary?

Statement 1 - Jane's salary is 80% of Mandy's salary.
Statement 2 - Sally's salary is 120% of Mandy's salary.

Which of the statements above make it possible to answer the question.


Explanation: 

To answer the question we need to know the percentage of Jane’s salary with respect to Mandy’s salary.
The first statement alone is not sufficient as it only gives the percentage of Jane’s salary with respect to Mandy’s salary.
The second statement alone is not sufficient as it only gives the percentage of Sally’s salary with respect to Mandy’s salary.
The first statement tells us that, if Mandy earns $100 then Jane will earn $80
The second statement tells us that, if Mandy earns $100 then Sally will earn $120
Using both statements together, we can say that Jane earns 80/120 or 66% of
Mandy’s salary.

Option C is the correct answer.
Note that you do not need to actually calculate the result – only to deduce that you need both pieces of information to do so.

13)

between three and four people actually read each copy of ‘OK’. On this basis, weestimate that the 500,000 copies of ‘Hello’ that are sold each month are actually readby 1,500,000 to 2,000,000 people.

The estimate above assumes that:


Explanation: 

The estimate assumes that: The ratio of copies to readers is the same for ‘Hello’ as for ‘OK’ magazine.
The ratio of copies to readers for ‘OK’ magazine is one copy to every three or four readers. In order for ‘Hello’ magazine, with a circulation of 500,000 copies, to be read by 1.5 to 2 million readers each copy would need to be read by three or four people.

Option B is correct.

14)

A crate of wine costs the retailer $225.
How much profit does the retailer make on each bottle?

Statement 1 - The bottles are sold for $25 each.
Statement 2 - There are 12 bottles in a crate.

Which of the statements above make it possible to answer the question.


Explanation :

We need to know the number of bottles in a crate and the selling price of a bottle to know the relationship between the cost and the selling prices of a bottle.
The first statement alone is not sufficient to answer the question as it gives the selling price of a bottle, but the number of bottles per crate is not known.
The second statement alone is not sufficient. The cost of a bottle can be obtained, but the selling price of each bottle is not known.
Combining the two statements, the selling price of a bottle can be obtained from the first statement and the cost per bottle is known from the main question and the second statement. Therefore both the statements together are sufficient to answer the question.
Option C is the correct answer.

15)

In the national university baseball league, the record of the teams is as follows:
Harvard have won the fewest games followed in ascending order by Yale, Duke and Princeton. Cornell are one game ahead of Duke. Princeton and Stanford are two games ahead of Cornell. Duke and Princeton have won an equal number of games. Duke wins the next match.

Which team is now at the same level as Cornell?


Explanation: 

On the basis of the given information, you can construct the following:
Princeton > Duke > Yale > Harvard
Cornell > Duke > Yale > Harvard
Princeton = Stanford > Cornell > Duke > Yale > Harvard
Stanford > Princeton > Cornell > Duke > Yale > Harvard
Therefore Duke is now in fourth place.
Option C is the correct answer.