Data Sufficiency

Hi Stuart,

Thanks for taking the time to reply to my post. By saying " in order", i meant in increasing or decreasing order. If this holds true, then the answer C is justified, eg:

2, 5, 8, 20

or -2, -5,-8,-20

In both examples,"The product of the greatest and smallest of the integers in the list is positive

and (2) There are an even number of integers in the list. Thus, C (If example two had an odd number, then the product would be negative; thus we need both statements to validate)


Is my analysis correct? Thank you:)

Hi,

the order in which you write out the set is irrelevant to sufficiency for this question.

Using your examples, whether you write the first set as:

{2, 5, 8, 20}

or

{8, 20, 2, 5}

the product of the greatest and smallest terms is still 20*2 = 40

since "greatest" refers to the number in the set furthest to the right on the number line and "smallest" refers to the number in the set furthest to the left on the number line, not the positions of the numbers in the written-out set.

So, the following set:

{2, -5, 11, 20}

would violate statement (1), since the smallest number is -5 and the greatest number is 20, giving us a negative product. The fact that -5 is the second term on the list is irrelevant to its size.

Hope that clears up any remaining confusion!

Thouraya wrote:Hi Stuart,

Thanks for taking the time to reply to my post. By saying " in order", i meant in increasing or decreasing order. If this holds true, then the answer C is justified, eg:

2, 5, 8, 20

or -2, -5,-8,-20

In both examples,"The product of the greatest and smallest of the integers in the list is positive

and (2) There are an even number of integers in the list. Thus, C (If example two had an odd number, then the product would be negative; thus we need both statements to validate)


Is my analysis correct? Thank you:)