College of Admission Tests Multan

Value Questions

Solve the question of and select the option from the choices A through D/E. Check your Answer and view the explanation.

Question: 10

A shelf contains only books of poetry, short stories, and non-fiction. If Jana draws a book randomly off the shelf, what is the probability that the book will be non-fiction?

(1) There are 15 books on the shelf.

(2) There are 4 books of poetry and 5 books of short stories on the shelf.

  • Statement (1) ALONE is sufficient, but statement (2) alone is not sufficient.
  • Statement (2) ALONE is sufficient, but statement (1) alone is not sufficient.
  • BOTH statements TOGETHER are sufficient, but NEITHER statement ALONE is sufficient.
  • EACH statement ALONE is sufficient.
  • Statements (1) and (2) TOGETHER are NOT sufficient.

  Show/Hide Explanation 

Correct Answer: C

Statement (1) doesn’t tell us anything about the breakdown of the different types of books, so we don’t know how likely Jana is to draw a non-fiction book. Eliminate A and D.

Statement (2) alone doesn’t tell us anything about the number of non-fiction books. So we can eliminate B.

Putting the statements together, we can tell that there are 6 non-fiction books on the shelf by subtracting 4 and 5 from 15. Therefore, Jana has a 6/15 or 2/5 probability of drawing a non-fiction book at random, and our answer is C.