Is a < b?

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VJesus12: Legendary Member; Posts: 2276; Joined: Sat Oct 14, 2017 6:10 amFollowed by: 3 members

by VJesus12 » Thu Feb 01, 2018 1:22 am

Is a < b?

(1) a^b<b^a.
(2) a/b>1\ .

The OA is the option E.

I thought statement (2) was sufficient. Why is not? Experts, may you clarify this for me? Thanks in advanced.

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Source: Beat The GMAT — Data Sufficiency | Thu Feb 01, 2018 1:22 am

DavidG@VeritasPrep: Legendary Member; Posts: 2663; Joined: Wed Jan 14, 2015 8:25 amFollowed by: 128 members; Location: Boston, MA; Thanked: 1153 times; GMAT Score:770

by DavidG@VeritasPrep » Thu Feb 01, 2018 10:00 am

VJesus12 wrote:Is a < b?

1) a^b < b^a.

2) a/b>1 .

The OA is the option E.

I thought statement (2) was sufficient. Why is not? Experts, may you clarify this for me? Thanks in advanced.

Statement 1: pick easy numbers. Case 1: a = -2 and b = -1. This gives us a YES, a<b
Case 2: a = 4 b = 3, This gives us a NO, a is not less than b.
1 alone is not sufficient.

Statement 2: We can use the same numbers, as -2/-1 > 1 and 4/3> 1. So we already know that we can get a YES and a NO both for statement 2 alone and when testing the statements together. The answer is E

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