CAT Exam Model Paper 2 with solutions for free online practice

Question : 85 of 100

Marks: +1, -0

Swetha, Swarna, Sneha and Soumya are four sisters who has an agreement that they share all snacks equally among themselves. One day, uncle Prem gave a box of cookies to Swetha. Since the other sisters were not around, Swetha divided the cookies into four parts, ate her share and put the rest into the box. As she was closing the box, Swarna came in. She divided the cookies into four equal parts. The two of them ate their respective shares and put the rest into the box. Just then Sneha walked in. She took all the cookies from the box, divided them into four equal parts. The three of them ate their respective shares and put the rest into the box. Later, when Soumya came, she divided all the cookies into four equal parts and all the four sisters ate their respective shares. In total, Soumya ate 3 cookies. How many cookies, in total, did Sneha eat?

Your Answer:

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Solution:

Students please note that the best way to solve this equation is to work backwards. Since Soumya was last to eat the cookies and she ate 3 cookies, the total number of cookies left when she entered the room = (3 × 4) = 12. This should be Soumya’s sharethat was left in the box uneaten. Hence just before Soumya entered, Swetha, Sneha and Swarna would have eaten their share of 12 cookies each.
Total number of cookies left when Senha entered = (12 × 4) = 48.
This in turn should have been the combinedshares of Sneha and Soumya (24 × 2) that was left in the box uneaten. So Just before Sneha entered, Swetha and Swarna should have eaten 24 cookies each. In other words number of cookies left, just before Swarna entered= (24 × 4) = 96 . Now this shouldhave been the combined shares of Swarna, Sneha and Soumya (3 × 32) that was kept in the box by Swetha. So just before Swarna entered, Swetha must have eaten her share of 32 cookies. Hence total number of cookies given by Prem uncle = (32 × 4) = The situationis also shown in the following table:

		Who ate how many cookies?
		Swetha	Swarna	Sneha	Soumya	Not Eaten	Total
Who entered?	Soumya	3	3	3	3	-	12
	Sneha	12	12	12	-	12	48
	Swarna	24	24	-	-	(24 × 2)= 48	96
	Swetha	32	-	-	-	(32 × 3)= 96	128
	Total	71	39	15	3	-	-

We can see that Sneha ate 15 cookies in all.

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