Averages, Mixtures and Alligation

Prithvi Raj
CAT 2016 – 99.08 %ile.

XAT 2018 – 99.52 %ile

CAT 2020 – 99.11 %ile

SBI PO 2018
TABLE OF CONTENT

1. Introduction to Averages

2. Properties of Averages

3. Weighted Average

4. Important Points to Remember

5. Mixtures

6. Alligation

7. Removal and Replacement in a mixture

8. Basic Level Questions

9. Intermediate Level Questions

10. Advanced Level Questions

 Introduction

• Averages is a quantity used to represent the central value of a

set of different values.

• It is calculated by taking the sum of all the values and then

dividing it by the number of values.

• It is also called the arithmetic mean and can be represented as:

𝑆𝑢𝑚 𝑜𝑓 𝑎𝑙𝑙 𝑡ℎ𝑒 𝑡𝑒𝑟𝑚𝑠

Average =
𝑁𝑜. 𝑜𝑓 𝑡𝑒𝑟𝑚𝑠
 Properties

• The average of any set of numbers would be lower than the

highest value of the set and higher than the lowest value of the
set.

• If the value of each term of the set is increased or decreased by

‘k’, then the average would also increase or decrease by ‘k’.

• If the value of each term of the set is multiplied or divided by

‘k’, then the average would also be multiplied or divided by ‘k’.
 Pro
Q- There are 3 sections in class 10th each p aedifferent
with r t i e s strength. Section A has 30
students and the average marks scored by the students in the exam are 60. Section B
has 35 students and the average marks scored by the students are 65. Section C has 25
students and the average marks scored by the students are 53. Find the average marks
of all the students of class 10th.
 Weighted Averages

If you are given sets with different number of elements in each

set and you are asked to find out the average of all the sets, then
the concept of weighted average comes into picture.

If there are n groups with each group having an average ‘A1’, ‘A2’,
‘A3’ and so on and each group having the number of elements as
‘k1’, ‘k2’, ‘k3’ and so on, then the weighted average of all these sets
is given by

A1k1 + A2k2+ A3k3+ …

=
k1 +k2+ k3’
 Important Points to Remember

(n+1)
Average of the first ‘n’ natural numbers =
2

Average of the first ‘n’ odd numbers = n

Average of the first ‘n’ even numbers = n+1

(n+1)(2n+1)
Average of the squares of first ‘n’ natural numbers =
6
 Mixtures

Mixture is the resultant of combining two or more different

quantities.

Q- There are 2 varieties of sand with a sand trader. Type-1 Sand sells at Rs. 28/kg while Type-2
sells at Rs. 36/kg. He wants to sell a mixture of both the types at a price of Rs. 32/kg. If the resultant
mixture contained 30 kg of type-1 sand, how much quantity of type-2 sand would be present in the
mixture?
Alligation
Alligation
 Alligation

Q- There are 2 varieties of sand with a sand trader. Type-1 Sand sells at Rs.
28/kg while Type-2 sells at Rs. 36/kg. He wants to sell a mixture of both the
types at a price of Rs. 32/kg. If the resultant mixture contained 30 kg of type-1
sand, how much quantity of type-2 sand would be present in the mixture?
 Alligation

Q- Vessel-1 contains Milk and Oil in the ratio 1:3 and Vessel-2 contains Milk and
Oil in the ratio 4:7. In what ratio should both the mixtures be mixed so that the
resultant mixture has milk and oil in the ratio 2:5?
 Removal and Replacement

If a mixture contains ‘a’ volume of liquid-A initially and ‘b’ volume of the liquid is
withdrawn and replaced with ‘b’ volume of liquid B and this operation is repeated
‘n’ no. of times, then we can say that

b n
Final Quantity of liquid A = Initial Quantity of Liquid A (1 - )
a
 Removal and Replacement

Q- Ram has 9 L of milk initially. He removes 2 L of milk and replaces it with

water. He repeats the process two more times in the resultant mixture. What will
be the amount of water in the final mixture obtained at the end?
 Type of Questions

The questions in this chapter can be split into these sections:

1. Basic Level Questions

2. Intermediate Level Questions

3. Advanced Level Questions

Basic Level Questions
 1. The average age of a class was 14 years. After two boys aged 8 years join the
class, the average decreases by 1. Find the total number of students in the class now.
a) 10 b) 12 c) 15 d) 18
 2. Ram sold an average of 45 pens/day from Monday to Friday. How many pens
should he sell on the weekend to get an average of 50 pens/day for the whole week?
a) 100 b) 120 c) 125 d) 150
 3. The average age of a football team of 11 was 17 years. However, if you include the
coach as well, the average age of the team increases by 1. What is the age of the
coach?

a) 28 b) 39 c) 35 d) 29
 4. A group of 20 workers were paid wages for the job. 15 of them were paid 100 each.
The other 5 were paid 5,10, 15, 20 and 25 more than the average wages respectively.
Find the total wages paid to the workers.
a) Rs. 2100 b) Rs. 2160 c) Rs. 2250 d) Rs. 2490
 5. A company has two departments A and B with a total employee strength of 120. Every employee of
department A was paid Rs. 1000 as the bonus while every employee of department B was paid Rs.1200
as bonus. If the total bonus paid was Rs. 1,40,000, find the total employees in department B.
a) 100 b) 80 c) 40 d) 20
 6. A shopkeeper earns a profit of 20% by diluting 15 L of milk with some amount of water and selling it
at cost price. Find the amount of water that he added for dilution in the process.
a) 4 b) 8 c)6 d) 3
 7. A trader sells a sand mixture at Rs. 35/kg for a profit of 25%. If the cost price of two varieties of the
sand mixed differs by 4 Rs (with Type-1 costing more) and they are mixed in the ratio 1:7 respectively.
Find the cost price of the Type-1 variety.
a) Rs. 27.5 b) Rs. 28.5 c) Rs. 31.5 d) Rs. 33.5
 8. A shopkeeper sells a mixture at Rs. 20/L for a profit of 25%. This mixture is formed by mixing 3
different liquids whose cost price are Rs. 11/L, 13/L and 23/L respectively. Which of the following is a
possible ratio of volumes in which the liquids could be mixed?
a) 4:5:5 b) 6:4:3 c) 3:2:5 d) 4:4:5
 9. The average of some numbers is 45. If two-thirds of the number are decreased by 3, by what value should the
rest of the numbers be increased so that the overall average increases by 2?
a) 7 b) 6 c)12 d)8
 10. A can of milk contains 500 litres of milk. From this can, 75 litres of milk is withdrawn and replaced
with water. This process is again repeated in the resultant mixture. Find the amount of milk in the final
solution.
a) 387.75 L b) 361.25 L c) 408.75 L d) 422.25 L
Intermediate Level Questions
 1. A shopkeeper bought a total of 105 kg of wheat to sell. He sold it a profit of 12% for the first few days. Later on
due to a sharp fall in prices of wheat in the market, he was forced to sell the rest of the stock at 18% loss. Overall,
he suffered a loss of 4% in the process. Find the amount of wheat that he had to sell at 18% loss.

a) 35 b) 50 c) 45 d) 56
 2. A wine bottle of 2 L, contains 81% alcohol. Out of this solution, x litres is taken out and replaced with water. This
process is done once again. If the new concentration of alcohol in the wine bottle is 64% now, find the value of x.
a) 0.33 L b) 0.66 L c) 0.22 L d) 0.44 L
 3. A blacksmith has two alloys of iron and copper. The first one contains 83.33% Iron and the second one contains
25% copper. He mixes them together to obtain a new alloy which contains 20% copper and weighs 65 kgs. Find the
amount of alloy-1 that he originally had.

a) 42 kg b) 26 kg c) 52 kg d) 39kg
 4. Mr. Sharma had savings of Rs. 1,50,000. He gave Rs 30,000 to his son to buy a laptop. He invested some
amount in Mutual Funds which earned him an interest of 14%. Besides this, he also kept some money in a fixed
deposit which gave him an interest rate of 6%. If at the end of the financial year, he earned an overall profit of 9%,
find the amount that he invested in the fixed deposit.

a) Rs. 50,000 b) Rs. 75,000 c) Rs. 56,000 d) Rs. 80,000

 5. The average of seven consecutive multiples of 3 is greater than the three consecutive multiples of 7 by 10. If the
sum of the largest multiple of 3 and the largest multiple of 7 in these sequences is 54. Find the smallest multiple of 3
in the sequence.

a) 12 b) 15 c) 18 d) 24
 6. Dried grapes contain 10% water by weight while fresh grapes contain 80% water by weight. A machine turns
fresh grapes into dry grapes by some process. What amount of dry grapes can be obtained from 30 kg of fresh
grapes?

a) 5 kg b) 6 kg c) 6.66 kg d) 7.5 kg
 7. Seven years ago, the sum of ages of a family of 8 members was 144. Three years later, a set of twins were born
in the family. A year after their birth, a family member dies. At this point the average of the family is calculated and it
turns out to be 20. Find the age of the member who died. (The average was calculated at a point in the year after
everyone’s birthdays had passed)

a) 48 b) 54 c) 62 d) 74
 8. The ratio of savings to expenditure is 3:4. If the income increases by 12% and the savings increase
by 22%, then what is the %age increase in expenditure?

a) 3.33 b) 4.25 c) 4.5 d) 5.33

 9. The average weight of a class of 50 students is 25 kg. The ratio of boys and girls in the class is 16:9.
Also, the ratio of the average weights of boys and girls is 3:2. Find the average weight of the girls.
a) 17.55 kg b) 18.93 kg c) 28.41 kg d) 17.91 kg
 10. Three bottles of different volumes contain a solution of milk and water in the ratio 1:3, 3:7 and 11: 4
respectively. They are mixed together and the resultant mixture contains milk and water in the ratio 21:
29. Which of the following can be a possible combination of the volumes of the bottles?
a) 40, 80, 120 b) 20, 30, 60 c) 30, 60, 90 d) 20, 50, 30
Advanced Level Questions
 1. A milkman had 40 L of pure milk with him. He added 10 L of waters to the solution. From this solution
he removed 20 L of the solution and replaced it with 20 L of water. Finally, he removed 25 L of the
solution and added x L milk to obtain a mixture which contains 66.66% milk. Find the value of x.
a) 10 L b) 7 L c) 14 L d) 12 L
 2. The cost of producing a chair has a fixed component and is also dependent on the number of chairs
that are produced at one time. If a batch of 40 chairs is produced, the average cost of a chair is Rs. 250.
If a batch of 70 chairs is produced, the average cost of a chair is Rs. 190. Find the average cost of a
chair when 140 chairs are produced in a batch.
a) Rs. 120 b) Rs. 150 c) Rs. 135 d) Rs. 125
 3. There are two acid solutions (acid and water) of different concentrations. They are mixed together in the ratio 1:2
to obtain a new acid solution. The chemist, however, is not happy with the result. So, he adds the same volume of
solution 1 that he had mixed earlier to the mixture and then dilutes it further by adding water to the resultant mixture.
The amount of water that he adds is 2.4 times the volume of solution-1. Finally, he gets a new acid solution with 50%
concentration. If the concentration of acid solution-1 is 70%, find the concentration of acid-solution-2.
a) 65% b) 78% c) 90% d) 92%
 4. A solution consists of water, liquid X and liquid Y. Water is 2/5th of the solution while liquid X and Y exist in the
ratio 8:7. The solution is passed through a machine which separates the liquids. In the process, the machine
extracts all the water and some of the liquid X from the solution leading to a loss of 150 ml to the volume of the
solution. Also, after passing through the machine the ratio of X and Y in the solution has also changed to 11: 14.
Find the total volume of the solution originally.
a) 400 ml b) 600 ml c) 450 ml d) 300 ml
 5. The strength of a salt solution is defined as x% if 100 ml of the solution contains x grams of the salt. We have 3
different salt solutions namely A, B, C with 15%, 25% and 35% strength respectively. 100 ml of each solution was
taken for an experiment. Firstly, 20 ml of solution A was transferred to solution B. Then, 20 ml of solution B was
transferred to solution C. Finally, 20 ml of solution C was transferred to solution A. After this, the strength of solution
A was calculated again and it came out as:
a) 16.5% b) 17.4% c) 19.2% d) 18.6%