From the course: Preparing for the GMAT

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Adding numbers technique

Adding numbers technique

From the course: Preparing for the GMAT

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Adding numbers technique

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- [Instructor] So the GMAT sometimes writes math problems that are abstract. For instance, there might not be any numbers in the problem at all. So in this video we'll talk about how to add numbers to problems to make them more concrete. So here we have a word problem. And if we look through it, we see some x's in it. And there's not really too many numbers in it, so this might be an opportunity to add some numbers. So let's read the problem. To see whose vehicle has the better turning radius, Hermione and Justin drive their respective cars in a circle. Hermione's circle has a diameter of 3/4 x feet, and Justin's has a diameter of x feet. So I'll draw Justin's circle. His is bigger 'cause his diameter is x and hers is 3/4 x. Okay, so instead of dealing with x's, what if we actually knew what x was? And the beauty of this is we could pick any number for x pretty much and it will still work. We don't want to pick zero, 'cause that wouldn't work, but of course the circles have a positive…

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