{"id":4326,"date":"2012-07-09T10:50:55","date_gmt":"2012-07-09T15:50:55","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/local.gre.web\/blog\/?p=4326"},"modified":"2019-08-30T16:44:49","modified_gmt":"2019-08-30T16:44:49","slug":"functions-in-real-life-wedding-planning-math","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.manhattanprep.com\/gre\/blog\/functions-in-real-life-wedding-planning-math\/","title":{"rendered":"Functions in Real Life: Wedding Planning Math"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/p>\n

This amazing math wedding cake<\/A> is from Pink Cake Box.<\/em><\/p>\n

This past week, I was attempting to plan a wedding, and came across yet another “GRE math in real life” situation. (When you’re a GRE instructor, you tend to spot these quite often!)<\/p>\n

I’m going to give you three different GRE math problems using the same real-life wedding scenario. Here goes!<\/p>\n

Question 1:<\/strong> To hold a wedding at NYC Private Club costs $130 per person, including food and open bar. There is also a $500 ceremony fee and a 20% service charge, as well as 8.875% NYC tax on the entire bill. Which of the following represents the total cost C<\/em> of a wedding at NYC Private Club as a function of the number of people, p<\/em>?<\/p>\n

A. C(p) = (130p + 500)(0.8)(91.125)
B. C(p) = (130p)(0.2)(1.08875) + 500
C. C(p) = (130p)(1.2)(0.08875) + 500
D. C(p) = 130p + 1.2p + 1.08875p + 500
E. C(p) = (130p + 500)(1.2)(1.08875)<\/p>\n

Question 2:<\/strong> To hold a wedding at NYC Private Club costs $130 per person, including food and open bar. There is also a $500 ceremony fee and a 20% service charge, as well as 8.875% NYC tax on the entire bill. If a wedding at NYC Private Club cost, to the nearest dollar, $10,334, how many guests attended the wedding?<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

Question 3: <\/strong><\/p>\n

To hold a wedding at NYC Private Club costs $130 per person, including food and open bar. There is also a $500 ceremony fee and a 20% service charge, as well as 8.875% NYC tax on the entire bill.

\nQuantity A<\/u>
\nThe overall cost per person, including all fees, charges, and taxes, of a wedding at NYC Private Club with 100 guests
\n<\/TD>		\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/TD>
\nQuantity B<\/u>
\nThe overall cost per person, including all fees, charges, and taxes, of a wedding at NYC Private Club with 150 guests
\n<\/TD><\/TR><\/TABLE><\/p>\n

A. Quantity A is greater.
B. Quantity B is greater.
C. The two quantities are equal.
D. The relationship cannot be determined from the information given.<\/p>\n

Select your answers before reading any further! <\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Question 1<\/strong>: The tricky thing about this function is that the cost of $130 is per person, whereas the $500 is simply a flat fee. Also, the service charge and tax need to be applied to the entire amount, not just the $130 per person.<\/p>\n

So, 130p takes care of the $130 per person. Then, add $500. (130p + 500) is the total cost without the service charge and tax. To add 20%, multiply by 1.2 (NOT just 0.2, which would make the number SMALLER. We want to KEEP the original amount, then add ANOTHER 20% to it.) To add 8.875%, multiply by 1.08875 (for the same reason).<\/p>\n

Thus, the correct function is C(p) = (130p + 500)(1.2)(1.08875), or answer choice E.<\/p>\n

Question 2<\/strong>: Once you’ve done Question 1, Question 2 should seem a bit easier — it’s basically question 1 in reverse. On your paper, you would need to write a formula for the wedding cost, and set the answer equal to $10,334:<\/p>\n

(130p + 500)(1.2)(1.08875) = 10334<\/p>\n

Let’s multiply (1.2)(1.08875) to get 1.3065, then divide both sides by 1.3065:<\/p>\n

(130p + 500)(1.3065) = 10334
\n130p + 500 = 7909.682357
\n130p = 7409.682357
\np = 56.9975566<\/p>\n

Hmmn, 56.9975566 people? Remember that the cost was rounded to the nearest dollar, which is why our answer is pretty close to 57, but not exactly. You might do a little logic check to make sure it’s okay to round up (it is) — it turns out that $10,334 is enough to pay for 56 and more than 99\/100ths of another person. So, does it make sense that less-than-one-more-dollar would pay for the other less-than-1% of a person? Why yes, it does!<\/p>\n

The answer is 57.<\/p>\n

Question 3<\/strong>: Like many Quantitative Comparison questions, this question requires NO MATH, just a bit of logic.<\/p>\n

Obviously, the more people at the wedding, the higher the cost. But wouldn’t the cost PER PERSON stay the same? Not at NYC Private Club. While the $130 is per person and the service charge and tax are proportional to the number of people, the $500 doesn’t change based on how many people you have.<\/p>\n

Imagine you had a wedding with only one guest. The cost per person would be $130, plus $500<\/em>, plus service charge and tax! But if you had a wedding with 500 guests, the cost per person would be $130, plus $1 (1\/500th of the $500 fee)<\/em>, plus service charge and tax.<\/p>\n

So, the more people you have, the lower the cost per person. The answer is A. (Don’t get tricked! Column B represents a better deal<\/i> (at least per person), but we need to pick the largest number, of course!)<\/p>\n

In sum, the GRE is hard and weddings are expensive. Okay, just kidding: the GRE is completely learnable, and weddings are expensive.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

This amazing math wedding cake is from Pink Cake Box. This past week, I was attempting to plan a wedding, and came across yet another “GRE math in real life” situation. (When you’re a GRE instructor, you tend to spot these quite often!) I’m going to give you three different GRE math problems using the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":22,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6,9],"tags":[],"yst_prominent_words":[],"class_list":["post-4326","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-gre-strategies","category-math-gre-strategies"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.manhattanprep.com\/gre\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4326","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.manhattanprep.com\/gre\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.manhattanprep.com\/gre\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.manhattanprep.com\/gre\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/22"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.manhattanprep.com\/gre\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4326"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.manhattanprep.com\/gre\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4326\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7076,"href":"https:\/\/www.manhattanprep.com\/gre\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4326\/revisions\/7076"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.manhattanprep.com\/gre\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4326"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.manhattanprep.com\/gre\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4326"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.manhattanprep.com\/gre\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4326"},{"taxonomy":"yst_prominent_words","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.manhattanprep.com\/gre\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/yst_prominent_words?post=4326"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}