gmat prep numbers

This topic has expert replies
Source: — Problem Solving |

User avatar
Legendary Member
Posts: 566
Joined: Fri Jan 04, 2008 11:01 am
Location: Philadelphia
Thanked: 31 times
GMAT Score:640

by AleksandrM » Thu May 08, 2008 9:11 am
This one is testing your knowledge of imperfect roots.

Just plug in the numbers.

A. sqroot of 1 is one. Eliminate.
B. sqroot of 2 is 1.4, which will give you a positive number. Eliminate.
C. sqroot of 3 is 1.7, which will give you a positive number. Eliminate.
D. sqroot of 4 is 2, which will give you a positive number. Eliminate.
E. sqroot of 5 is 2.2 which will leave you with a sqroot of 2 - 2.2, which is - 0.8 which is going to give you some result with i (i = -1). Not a real number. E is your answer.

User avatar
Master | Next Rank: 500 Posts
Posts: 400
Joined: Mon Dec 10, 2007 1:35 pm
Location: London, UK
Thanked: 19 times
GMAT Score:680

by II » Thu May 08, 2008 1:08 pm
Good summary from Aleksander ... this question is checking your understanding of square roots of negative numbers.
You cannot have a square root of a negative number ... a square root of a negative number is known as an "imaginary number", since no real number exists which when squared will give a negative number.

Master | Next Rank: 500 Posts
Posts: 222
Joined: Tue Mar 25, 2008 3:52 pm
Thanked: 2 times

by vinviper1 » Fri May 09, 2008 10:00 am
Ahh...thanks guys