Scheduling Problem with Time (to the Hour or Minute)

by **kim0928** Sun Sep 06, 2015 9:56 am

Source: Manhattan Prep - Word Problems - Chapter 10 - Problem 3

"When it is 2:01pm Sunday afternoon in Nullepart, it is Monday in Eimissaan. When it is 1:00pm Wednesday in Eimissaan, it is also Wednesday in Nullepart. When it is noon Friday in Nullepart, what is the possible range of times in Eimissaan?"

In particular, how important is it to be precise to the minute on such scheduling problems? Since the first statement reads "it is 2:01pm", I got the sense that the answer would be precise. But the answer seemed to be to the hour (10pm Friday to 1am Saturday versus 9:59 Friday to 1am Saturday).

by **tim** Mon Sep 07, 2015 12:56 am

In general, you need to be as exact as the problem indicates, and if the problem does not indicate the necessary degree of precision, then the answer needs to be exact. The answer WAS exact for this problem. 9:59 is not correct as a lower limit; 10:00pm and 0.00000 seconds is correct (or, to put it more simply, 10pm).

by **RonPurewal** Tue Sep 08, 2015 12:16 pm

any there any answer choices?

if yes, what are they?

if no, then ... the difficulty you're facing here comes entirely from the lack of answer choices. if you were given answer choices, it would be easy to determine the correct one.
(on the official exam, the wrong answers on the exam are NEVER wrong for 'tricky' or 'nit-picking' reasons. if you see a problem like this one, they'll give you wrong answers in which something is off by at least an hour.)

either way, the trouble here will be a non-issue on test day.

by **kim0928** Sun Sep 13, 2015 7:19 pm

Thanks, Ron! There were no answer choices in the given problem. I feel much better knowing that the answer choices on the exam should be distinct enough to avoid this issue, as I was still having trouble understanding that difference of 1 minute.

Cheers,

Amy

by **RonPurewal** Mon Sep 14, 2015 10:13 am

you're welcome.

the answer choices will definitely be distinct enough. the test writers do a truly admirable job of ensuring that the problems are not based on nit-picking.

by **LIK WONGL738** Wed Jun 10, 2020 8:27 am

For GMAT All the Quant Companion page 60. The upper limit should be 11 hours (Wednesday 1pm to Thursday 12 am), rather 13 hours stated in the solution, correct? Therefore, Eimissaan time is ranging from 10pm to 11pm on Friday?

by **Sage Pearce-Higgins** Wed Jun 17, 2020 4:57 am

To be clear, this is from the Problem Set at the end of Chapter 5 (Extra Word Problems).

That's something that you don't need to worry about: remember that real GMAT problems have answer choices to guide you. The writer of this problem wrote "2:01" to make it clear that the time in Eimissaan could be just after midnight, not 1am. However, you're right that perhaps the lower limit of the time difference is 9 hours and 59 minutes, not 10 hours as stated in the solution. I guess that there's an assumption that time differences are generally in whole hours.

Scheduling Problem with Time (to the Hour or Minute)

Scheduling Problem with Time (to the Hour or Minute)

Re: Scheduling Problem with Time (to the Hour or Minute)

Re: Scheduling Problem with Time (to the Hour or Minute)

Re: Scheduling Problem with Time (to the Hour or Minute)

Re: Scheduling Problem with Time (to the Hour or Minute)

Re: Scheduling Problem with Time (to the Hour or Minute)

Re: Scheduling Problem with Time (to the Hour or Minute)