I would consider this to be a difficult question. The Official Guide does not always adhere to an increasing order of difficulty, that is the overall trend but there are questions that don’t follow the trend.
The reason this question is difficult is that it is impossible to see on the surface that the two statements together are sufficient. I had to use an algebraic structure to make that conclusion, and if one tried to do it by plugging in values, then also it would be messy and a nightmare.
In general, word problem questions that involve multiple variables are generally in the difficult category, because these problems typically require significant reasoning and the answer is not clear at the beginning.
ADENIYI BOLAJI AMURE says
this seems quite difficult than the assigned difficulty level of easy. what is your take?
GMAT Quantum says
I would consider this to be a difficult question. The Official Guide does not always adhere to an increasing order of difficulty, that is the overall trend but there are questions that don’t follow the trend.
The reason this question is difficult is that it is impossible to see on the surface that the two statements together are sufficient. I had to use an algebraic structure to make that conclusion, and if one tried to do it by plugging in values, then also it would be messy and a nightmare.
In general, word problem questions that involve multiple variables are generally in the difficult category, because these problems typically require significant reasoning and the answer is not clear at the beginning.