ohjoon2 wrote:i have a question about remainders.
i know that the equation for this kind of stuff is... x/y = q + r/y
simplifying the equation, it comes out to x = qy + r.
what I want to know is.... what is the LEAST possible value of x????

example...
i saw a sample question in a prep book that stated the following.
when x is divided by 5, the remainder is 2. what is possible value of x if x<40?

in my head, this question is asking for all possible values of x that is less than 40.
so i come up with this equation.... x=5y + 2
this tells me that x is 2 greater than any multiple of 5.
i think the answer is 7 because the smallest multiple of 5 is 5. so i added 2 on top of that.

but i'm worried because the answer from the prep book is x=2,7,12,17,22,27,32,37.
in other words, the book is saying 2 is the least value of x.


CAN SOMEONE EXPLAIN?

ohjoon2 wrote:ok i guess i missed that class when the teacher was explaining that quotient can be zero.
but can we try one more example?

when positive integer a is divided by 5, the remainder is 3.
what is the least possible value of a?

my thought process is the following..
the basic equation for remainders is x/y = q + r/y
simplified form is x=yq + r
so the question is saying a=5q + 3.
as i thought BEFORE, i thought 8 would be the least possible value of a.
but as yall telling me, q CAN be 0.
so, what yall saying is the smallest possible value of a is 3???

correct?