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# Helen paid $252 for a conference ticket. If she had purchas  Question banks Downloads My Bookmarks Reviews Important topics Author Message TAGS: GRE Prep Club Legend Joined: 07 Jun 2014 Posts: 4857 GRE 1: Q167 V156 WE: Business Development (Energy and Utilities) Followers: 105 Kudos [?]: 1775 [0], given: 397 Helen paid$252 for a conference ticket. If she had purchas [#permalink]  02 Jun 2018, 04:02
Expert's post
00:00

Question Stats:

69% (01:44) correct 30% (03:25) wrong based on 13 sessions

Helen paid $252 for a conference ticket. If she had purchased the ticket one day later, she would have paid$306. How many days in advance did she purchase the ticket?

(A) 5
(B) 30
(C) 59
(D) 60
(E) 89
[Reveal] Spoiler: OA

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Kudos [?]: 537 [0], given: 88

Re: Helen paid $252 for a conference ticket. If she had purchas [#permalink] 02 Jun 2018, 05:48 Helen could have purchase the ticket in one of the three time frame allowing for discounts. Let us check if she had purchased the ticket on 5th day prior to the conference. she gets 15% discount from 5th to 29th day hence, 0.85x = 252; x is the original price of the conference and 252 is the amount paid by helen. x = $$\frac{252}{0.85}$$ or, x = 296..(a non-integer value) original price cannot have a non-integer value. Therefore she must have bought the tickets either on 30th day or 60th day Let us see if she had bought the ticket on 30th day. for 30-59 days she gets 30% discount hence she pays 0.7x or, 0.7x = 252 or, x = $$\frac{252}{0.7}$$ = 360 which is a tentative original price $$0.85*360 = 306$$. If she had been late by 1 day she would have to pay 85% of the original instead of 70%. Hence this confirms that she had bought the ticket on 30th day availing of 30% discount. option B _________________ This is my response to the question and may be incorrect. Feel free to rectify any mistakes GRE Prep Club Legend Joined: 07 Jun 2014 Posts: 4857 GRE 1: Q167 V156 WE: Business Development (Energy and Utilities) Followers: 105 Kudos [?]: 1775 [0], given: 397 Re: Helen paid$252 for a conference ticket. If she had purchas [#permalink]  14 Jul 2018, 04:58
Expert's post
Explanation

Helen bought a ticket for $252; if she had bought it one day later, she would have paid$54 more. There are three possibilities that represent the dividing lines between the given discount levels:

Possibility 1: She bought the ticket 60 days in advance for a 40% discount (if she’d bought it one day later, or 59 days in advance, she would have received a 30% discount instead).

Possibility 2: She bought the ticket 30 days in advance for a 30% discount (if she’d bought it one day later, or 29 days in advance, she would have received a 15% discount instead).

Possibility 3: She bought the ticket 5 days in advance for a 15% discount (if she’d bought it one day later, or 4 days in advance, she would not have received any kind of discount).

This question is harder than it looks, do not calculate a percent change between $252 and$306. The discounts are percents of the full-price ticket, which is an unknown value. Call it x.

Note that the only three possible answers are 5, 30, and 60 (answers (A), (B), and (D), respectively); 59 days ahead and 89 days ahead do not represent days for which the next day (58 and 88 days ahead, respectively) results in a change in the discount.

Possibility 1 (60 days in advance): $252 would represent a 40% discount from the original price, so the original price would be$252 = 0.6x, and x would be $420. _________________ Sandy If you found this post useful, please let me know by pressing the Kudos Button Try our free Online GRE Test Director Joined: 09 Nov 2018 Posts: 509 Followers: 0 Kudos [?]: 21 [0], given: 1 Re: Helen paid$252 for a conference ticket. If she had purchas [#permalink]  15 Jan 2019, 08:26
On https://gmatclub.com/forum/posting.php? ... &p=1866854

I found the following which may be helpful for some

GMATPrepNow wrote:
hazelnut wrote:
5-29 days in advance -> 15%
30-59 days in advance -> 30%
60-89 days in advance -> 40%

Helen bought a ticket for $252. If she had bought it 1 day later, she would have paid$306. How many days in advance did she buy her ticket?

(A) 5
(B) 30
(C) 59
(D) 60
(E) 89

Let's say the regular ticket price is $100 and see what kinds of prices we pay. 5-29 days in advance: we pay$85
30-59 days in advance: we pay $70 60-89 days in advance: we pay$60

Now let's examine the following ratios:

(Price paid 30-59 days in advance)/(Price paid 5-29 days in advance) = 70/85 = 14/17
(Price paid 60-89 days in advance)/(Price paid 30-59 days in advance) = 60/70 = 6/7

Now compare the given information.
(price paid)/(price WOULD HAVE paid a day later) = 252/306 = 126/153 = 42/51 = 14/17

The ratio of 14/17 matches the first scenario.
So, it must be the case that Helen paid the $252 amount 30 days in advance. A day later would have been 29 days in advance, in which case she would have paid$306

[Reveal] Spoiler:
B