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Simple Interest & Mixtures XAT 2020 / TANCET 2020 Practice

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This question is from the topic of Mixtures and Interest.
Vijay invested Rs.50,000 partly at 10% and partly at 15%. His total income after a year was Rs.7000. How much did he invest at the rate of 10%?

(1) Rs.40,000 (2) Rs.40,000
(3) Rs.12,000 (4) Rs.20,000
Correct Answer - (2)

Solution:

The best way to solve this problem is by using the concept in Mixtures and Alligation.

Vijay earned a total income of Rs.7000 for his investment of 50,000.
Therefore, his average rate of return = 7000/50000 * 100

By rule of alligation, if the value of one of the products is 10 (cheaper) and the other is 15 (dearer) and if the two are mixed such that the average value of the mixture is 14 (mean price), then the two products have been mixed in the following ratio.

The ratio of

    Cheaper product : Dearer product
    (Dearer product price - mean price) : (Mean price - cheaper product price)
In our example, the cheaper product is the investment at 10%, the dearer product is the investment at 15% and the mean price is the average return of 14%.

Therefore, the amount invested @10% interest = 1/5 * 50,000 = 10,000.


The CAT Way

The easiest way to solve this problem in CAT is by substituting answers.

Let us take answer choice (1) and see. The answer according to this choice is 40,000.

If he had invested Rs.40,000 at 10%, then he would have invested the balance 10,000 at 15%. The total interest earned by him would then be
    10% of 40,000 + 15% of 10,000 = 4000+1500 = 5500.
But, the problem states that the total interest earned by him was Rs.7000. Hence, choice (1) is not the correct answer. Let us evaluate the next choice.

He invested 10,000 at 10% and therefore, the balance 40,000 at 15%. Hence the interest earned by him will be
    10% of 10,000 + 15% of 40,000 = 1000 + 6000 = 7000, which is what the problem states.
Hence this is the correct answer.

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