answer to last week's MGRE Math Beast Challenge

MGRE has this to say about last week's Math Beast Challenge:

We are told that the 11th grade girls at Stumpville High School have an average GPA of 3.1, and the overall 11th grade average GPA is 3.05. Fortunately, the 11th grade has the same number of boys and girls, so rather than using the weighted average formula, we can simply conclude that the boys’ average GPA must be 3.0. Write on your paper something like:

11th grade boys average GPA = 3.0

(If you’re not sure about our quick inference, try this example: If a dozen people in a room each have an average of $10 and another dozen people each have an average of $20, then the average amount of money each person has is exactly $15, since the $10 group and the $20 group are the same size. Similarly, if this example had told you that a dozen people have an average of $10, another dozen people have x dollars, and the overall average is $15, then – since 15 is exactly halfway between 10 and 20 – you could confidently conclude that the other dozen people have an average of $20.)

We are told that all of the boys enrolled in Honors Chemistry are in 11th grade. From the first chart, add up the total number of boys: 46 + 52 + 52 + 50 = 200. From the bottom chart, we can see that 6% of boys take Honors Chemistry. 6% of 200 is 12, so write on your paper something like:

11th grade boys in Honors Chem = 12

We are told that these 12 boys have an average GPA of 3.8. And yet the average GPA for boys in 11th grade is only 3.0 – thus, we are expecting the rest of the boys’ GPAs to be much lower than the Honors Chemistry boys’ GPAs.

However, we CANNOT do the kind of “quick logic” we did above and assume that, since the Honors Chem 11th grade boys have an average GPA of 3.8 and the 11th grade boys in general have an average GPA of 3.0, therefore the rest of the boys have an average GPA of 2.2 (since 3.0 is exactly in the middle of 2.2 and 3.8). THIS IS A TRAP! We cannot conclude that the answer is 2.2, because the number of Honors Chem 11th grade boys and the number of other 11th grade boys are NOT THE SAME.

We must calculate a weighted average (to review Weighted Averages, see Manhattan Prep’s GRE Word Problems Strategy Guide). Remember that there are 12 boys in the 11th grade who are in Honors Chem and 40 who are not in Honors Chem:

[12(3.8) + 40(x)]/52 = 3.0

12(3.8) + 40x = 156

45.6 + 40x = 156

40x = 110.4

x = 2.76

The correct answer is B.

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