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by Jameschan168 » Mon Aug 27, 2007 10:51 pm
Hi all,

Can someone please help explain this problem?

S is a set of integers such that

i) if a is in S, then -a is in S, and
ii) if each of a and b is in S, then ab is in S.

Is -4 in S?

1) 1 is in S
2) 2 is in S

Stmt 1 is insufficient because 1 has nothing to do with -4 as the stmt does not provide any clues based on the 2 criteria above.

Stmt 2 is also insufficient because in order for -4 to be in S, either 4 (which fits the first criterion) or both 2 & -2 (which fits the second criteron) would need to be in S. Since stmt 2 only tells me that 2 is in S, but we don't know if -2 is also in S, why is the answer B?
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Source: — Data Sufficiency |

Re: DS

by gabriel » Tue Aug 28, 2007 12:32 am
Jameschan168 wrote:Hi all,

Can someone please help explain this problem?

S is a set of integers such that

i) if a is in S, then -a is in S, and
ii) if each of a and b is in S, then ab is in S.

Is -4 in S?

1) 1 is in S
2) 2 is in S

Stmt 1 is insufficient because 1 has nothing to do with -4 as the stmt does not provide any clues based on the 2 criteria above.

Stmt 2 is also insufficient because in order for -4 to be in S, either 4 (which fits the first criterion) or both 2 & -2 (which fits the second criteron) would need to be in S. Since stmt 2 only tells me that 2 is in S, but we don't know if -2 is also in S, why is the answer B?
the first statement says that if "a" is in s the "-a" is also there in s .. using that information we can see that if 2 is in s then -2 is also there in s ... and then from the second statement we know that since 2 and -2 is in s, 2*-2 is also there in s .. so -4 is in s .. hence the answer B ..
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by kajcha » Wed Aug 29, 2007 11:31 am
Should be B
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by kajcha » Wed Aug 29, 2007 11:36 am
Should be B
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