Coach Jordan and students.

[mathew.linoy]

Q: Coach Jordan will choose at least two students for his team from those who try out on Sunday. How many players will Coach Jordan choose?


1. Coach Jordan could choose exactly 20 different teams.
2. At least two students at the tryout will not be chosen.
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I need some help to understand this question. I understand that according to (1) there are 2 options. 20!/19! and 6!/3!3!. I chose E because I was heading nowhere with (2). Can anyone please explain the best way to solve this? Would a good guess be C because E is too easy to be correct? If yes, can we have a strategy for this?

Thanks

[tim]

As per the forum rules, we need a verifiable source for the problem before we can deal with this question. If the question is not one of ours or one that is copyright-free, we will have to delete the question..

[mathew.linoy]

I have only seen similar questions. The source of this question is me. Now can I get an explanation to my question? :-)

[tim]

it's an interesting question. not written the way the GMAT would, so of course you should be VERY careful writing your own questions, but i think i get what you're trying to say. as a side note though, you should NEVER EVER write a question yourself that you don't understand! :)

first, are you sure there are only two options for statement 1? regardless, the fact that you've found two means 1 is insufficient on its own. as for statement 2, it's obviously not sufficient on its own, but let's combine the statements. we can rule out 19 players on the team out of a pool of 20. if you can verify that the examples you've provided are the only combinations that give you 20, then you have narrowed it down to a single option and can pick C. at any rate you should not guess E unless you just have no idea how to proceed, at which point you can just make a random guess from the remaining choices..