Ashley and Cassandra drove their cars along the same route for 400 miles and then stopped at a gasoline station, where each purchased exactly the amount of gasoline needed to fill her car’s gasoline tank to capacity. If both cars began with full gasoline tanks, which person’s car consumed more gasoline during the 400-mile trip?
(1) At the gasoline station, Ashley purchased 10% less gasoline by volume than Cassandra purchased.
(2) The capacity of Ashley’s gasoline tank is 15% less than the capacity of Cassandra’s gasoline tank.
A. Statement (1) ALONE is sufficient, but statement (2) alone is not sufficient.
B. Statement (2) ALONE is sufficient, but statement (1) alone is not sufficient.
C. BOTH statements TOGETHER are sufficient, but NEITHER statement ALONE is sufficient.
D. EACH statement ALONE is sufficient.
E. NEITHER ALONE NOR TOGETHER are the statements sufficient.
Answer:
This is a cleverly constructed and tricky question, typical of harder Data Sufficiency questions, and very brain-teaser-esque. It can feel like there is a lot going on here and it may seem like you need a lot of information to answer the question, but in fact you do not, and that is another pattern in Data Sufficiency questions!
Statement 1: If both tanks were filled to capacity before the trip started and if Ashley purchased 10% less gasoline than Cassandra, then she consumed less gasoline than Cassandra! It doesn’t matter what the capacity of their tanks is. The volume that is filling the tanks IS the volume of gas consumed! Statement 1 is sufficient.
Statement 2: Knowing the difference in capacity between the tanks without knowing anything about how much gas was put in the tanks is not sufficient. Really this statement is meant to tempt people who believe that they need this information IN ADDITION TO statement 1. In other words, the questions is designed to tempt people to pick C. But that is a trap. As stated above, statement 1 is sufficient without information about the capacity of the tanks!
The correct answer is A.