Striving for balance, Willa wants to learn at most 12% more words in Welsh this week than she did last week. If she succeeded in achieving her objective by learning 50 words this week, which of the following could be the number of words that she learned last week?
The correct answer is (D).
current priority level - the Path to 700+ or higher
If you’re wondering about the current priority level for this one, because you think it’s a bit high, let’s start by acknowledging that….
Before you consider not reading the rest of what’s below, let’s take a moment to acknowledge the possible bait that is option (A) here. Seeing the numbers 50 and 12, many of us could find our brains having a 38 pop in. This is the kind of thing that test writers seem to anticipate. And so, if you read this question and acknowledged that you were not sure how to approach things, the power move to potentially make is click on any option other than (A) and happily go on your way.
Ok, with what’s been said, consider how much it might currently matter to you to read the rest of what’s here, as it is quite solid that it really does not matter….
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If you’re still reading, it’s time to talk about the synergy that exists between certain word problems involving percents and the classic test-taking technique we call Use the Given Answers(UGA).
Let’s say that last week, Willa learned 44(option(C)) words. This means that this week, she learned 6(50-44) more words than the previous week. Dividing 6 by 44, we get 0.1363636, which becomes 13.63636%, which is more than the “at mot 12%” cap Willa had set for herself.
If last week, Willa learned 45 words, it would mean that she learned 5(50-45) more words this week than the previous week. Dividing 5 by 44, we get 0.1136363, which becomes 11.36363%, which is under the “at most 12%” limit.
If we had executed similar computations for options (A) and (B), we would get percents greater than 12%.
Let’s close out this analysis by acknowledging three things….