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If a/b is less than 1, what has to be greater than 1?

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by preetha_85 » Thu Jul 10, 2008 12:07 am
Hi

If a/b <1 this implies a<b>a
dividing both side by a
b/a >1
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by bhuman111 » Thu Jul 10, 2008 1:02 am
The question as its stated must be wrong because it does not exclude negative numbers.

The OA is A. Lets take the two values:
a= -1
b= 4

(-1)/(4)

and

(4)/(-1)


Both are less than 1.
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by umaa » Thu Jul 10, 2008 1:07 am
right. I also believe that the answer is not A.
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by CappyAA » Thu Jul 10, 2008 3:17 am
The question is stated wrong. Set a = 2 and b = 3

a/b = 2/3 <1> 1
b) b/a^2 = 3/4 < 1 - RULE OUT
c) a/2b = 2/6 < 1 - RULE OUT
d) sqrt(a/b) = sqrt(2/3) < 1 - RULE OUT
e) a/b^2 = 2/9 < 1 - RULE OUT

So it is valid in this case for A

But in negative numbers as a previous poster said, where a = 2 and b = -3, both a/b and b/a are negative. So A is the answer assuming both a and b are positive.
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by olika » Thu Jul 10, 2008 10:01 am
preetha_85 wrote:Hi

If a/b <1 this implies a<b>a
dividing both side by a
b/a >1
How can you divide by a, if you know nothing about it? Maybe a=0? You can't divide by zero.

I agree something seems to be missing in the problem.

If the statement 'a/b<1' is true, we have three cases:
1) both a and b >0, and a<b
2) a=0, b = any number
3) a - negative, b - positive, and visa versa a - positive, b - negative.

Thus, we should check all tree cases to come up with the answer.
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