Practice Test 1 Section 6 Quant Question 13

[johnhurford]

"The company at which Mark is employed has 80 employees, each of whom has a different salary....what would Mark's salary be with respect to the quartiles of the 88 salaries at the company assuming not other changes in the salaries?"

I'm not understanding how to organize the quartiles? The question says that Mark has the second highest salary in the first quartile. So I understand that to be of the 80 employees salaries Mark's is the 2nd highest salary of all the employees.

Then we add 8 new employees at "salaries that are less than the lowest of the 80 salaries...". So I take it that this means you add 8 new people to the mix and those 8 salaries are lower than the original 80.

In my mind, Mark's salary doesn't change position - he's still the 2nd highest paid employee. What am I not understanding/where have I gone wrong?

[tommywallach]

Hey John,

Each test is different, but I checked your practice test 1, and you did not receive this question as number 13 anywhere. Did you mark it incorrectly? (In the future, you can also give the official question name as listed in your score report.)

-t

[johnhurford]

Hi Tommy,

The problem I am referencing is on page 341 of the OG. It's number 13 on Practice Test 1 (it does say section 6). Does that help?

John

[tommywallach]

Hey John,

Found it! Sorry about that. I think the mistake you're making is thinking the first quartile is the HIGHEST quartile. In that case, Mark's position wouldn't change based on the introduction of the new people. But the first quartile is the BOTTOM quartile. So...

Each quartile starts with 20 people in it. Mark is thus ranked 19th in the company. (80-61 = fourth quartile, 60-41 = third quartile, 40-21 = second quartile, 20 = the highest-paid person in the first quartile, then Mark).

If you add 8 people, quartiles would now have 22 people in them. We know that all 8 people will be in the first quartile. Mark is thus pushed up into the 27th position. This is the fifth lowest position in the second quartile (the first quartile is 1-22, then 23, 24, 25, 26, 27 gets us to Mark).

Hope that helps!

-t