---
title: "GMAT Question of the Day #116 - Reducing Unnecessary Calculation"
description: GMAT Data Sufficiency Question:
image: https://www.myguruedge.com/hubfs/Screen%20shot%202017-04-20%20at%2011.47.31%20PM.png
---

[ Back to blog ](https://www.myguruedge.com/our-thinking/gmat-blog)

This blog post relates to question #116 from the [Official Guide for GMAT Review, 2017](https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1119347637/ref=as_li_qf_sp_asin_il_tl?ie=UTF8&tag=myg096d-20&camp=1789&creative=9325&linkCode=as2&creativeASIN=1119347637&linkId=f3f96079e5fb0f165bab67ed18b86553).

What intimidates most students here, and sends them spiraling into a black hole of unnecessary calculation, is the first line of the table: 10.8% of 37. It’s not as bad as it looks, but we’ll come back to that…

Do you see a friend? Isn’t 66.7% = 2/3. Since we can’t have fractional marbles, the total number of marbles in *Bag Q* must be a multiple of 3… in other words,

![Screen shot 2017-04-20 at 11.47.31 PM.png](https://www.myguruedge.com/hs-fs/hubfs/Screen%20shot%202017-04-20%20at%2011.47.31%20PM.png?width=117&height=47&name=Screen%20shot%202017-04-20%20at%2011.47.31%20PM.png)

So, we can dispose of A, D, and E. Let’s try C – the number of marbles in *Bag Q* is 12

*Total Marbles* = 37 + 12 + 32 = 81

Back to 10.8% of 37.

- What’s 10% of 37?
- What’s an integer that’s a little more than 10% of 37?
- 4

See, that wasn’t so bad.

![Screen shot 2017-04-20 at 11.49.55 PM.png](https://www.myguruedge.com/hs-fs/hubfs/Screen%20shot%202017-04-20%20at%2011.49.55%20PM.png?width=511&height=77&name=Screen%20shot%202017-04-20%20at%2011.49.55%20PM.png)

**Takeaways:**

1. Be on the lookout for your friends, and numbers close to your friends.
2. Use context to eliminate answers – you can’t have fractional marbles, people, cats, dogs, etc.
3. Don’t be intimidated by numbers that aren’t your friends… the people at GMAC are just trying to mess with your head. Don’t let them.

 

---

 *John is a Senior MyGuru GMAT tutor based in Chicago, but is also the founder of *[*Owl Test Prep*](http://www.owltestprep.com/)* . We encourage you to check out their web-site and *[*YouTube channel*](https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCB2q8TsRcUK_q95SLi4glAA)*.*

## Related Articles

[GMAT quant](https://www.myguruedge.com/our-thinking/gmat-blog/topic/gmat-quant) [GMAT prep](https://www.myguruedge.com/our-thinking/gmat-blog/topic/gmat-prep)

For today's GMAT Question of the Day, we have an** AD/BCE Value Question, **relating to question #311 from the**[Official Guide for GMAT Review, 2017](https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1119347637/ref=as_li_qf_sp_asin_il_tl?ie=UTF8&tag=myg096d-20&camp=1789&creative=9325&linkCode=as2&creativeASIN=1119347637&linkId=f3f96079e5fb0f165bab67ed18b86553)**. See below for a clear,...

[GMAT quant](https://www.myguruedge.com/our-thinking/gmat-blog/topic/gmat-quant)

Many of our GMAT students are very intimidated by the quantitative section of the GMAT.  But they really don’t need to be.

We are quick to explain that it can often be...

```json
{
  "@context" : "https://schema.org",
  "@type" : "BlogPosting",
  "author" : {
    "@type" : "Person",
    "name" : "Mark Skoskiewicz",
    "url" : "https://www.myguruedge.com/our-thinking/gmat-blog/author/mark-skoskiewicz"
  },
  "datePublished" : "2017-05-04T16:22:00.000Z",
  "headline" : "GMAT Question of the Day #116 - Reducing Unnecessary Calculation",
  "mainEntityOfPage" : {
    "@id" : "https://www.myguruedge.com/our-thinking/gmat-blog/gmat-question-of-the-day-116-0",
    "@type" : "WebPage"
  },
  "publisher" : {
    "@type" : "Organization",
    "logo" : {
      "@type" : "ImageObject",
      "url" : "https://www.myguruedge.com/hubfs/web_medium_stacked.png"
    },
    "name" : "MyGuru"
  }
}
```