Probability and Proportion

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At a city council meeting, one attendee is to be selected at random to be a tiebreaker. What is the probability that the person chosen is retired?

(1) One-third of the attendees are retired.

(2) Twenty-four of the attendees are not retired.

Review: Probability and Proportion


Explanation

This question appears to contain extraneous details; all we care about is the odds that a random person in a group is retired, and for that all we need to know is the fraction or percentage of retired people in the group. On to the data statements, separately. Statement (1) gives us just that, just what we are looking for. Sufficient. Statement (2) does not give us the fraction or percentage of retirees. It gives us the number of non-retirees. If we had the number of people total, we would be able to infer the fraction of non-retirees and hence the fraction of retirees; but we don't have the total number of people. Ergo Statement (2) is insufficient.

The correct answer is (A).


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