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Coordinate Geometry

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by koby_gen » Wed May 11, 2011 10:51 am
In the xy-coordinate plane, line I1 and line I2 intersect at the point (-2,5). Is the product of their slopes negative ?

(1) The product of the x-intercepts of lines I1 and I2 is negative.

(2) The product of the y-intercepts of lines I1 and I2 is positive.
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Source: — Data Sufficiency |

by pankajks2010 » Wed May 11, 2011 6:56 pm
IMO C.

Please can you share the OA.

Thanks!!
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by djiddish98 » Thu May 12, 2011 7:29 am
FYI - I'm bad at these coordinate geo problems.

The way I'm reading it, we want to know if only 1 of the slopes are negative (thus the product will be negative). So the question is, are the lines going in the same direction or are they going in opposite directions?

Statement 1 - This tells us that 1 x intercept is negative and 1 x intercept is positive. If the lines intersect at (-2,5), and an x intercept is positive, I believe that means that 1 slope is negative.

since x intercept is when y = 0. If (-2,5) is a point on a line and x is positive when y = 0, that means y is decreasing as x is increasing or negative slope.

I think this is sufficient

Statement 2 - Tells us that both Y intercepts are positive or negative. However, a negative sloping line could have a positive Y intercept or it may not. If -2,5 is a point, then a slope of -1/2 would have a y intercept at 0,4. a slope of 1/2 would have a y intercept at 0,6. I believe we can construct the same with negative Y intercepts. Therefore, we don't know if only 1 slope is negative.

Insufficient.

IMO: A
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by ankurmit » Thu May 12, 2011 7:48 am
IMO A is answer.
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Ankur mittal
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by Chaitanya_1986 » Thu May 12, 2011 10:20 am
Can any one explain this by Graphical approach????
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by djiddish98 » Thu May 12, 2011 11:49 am
I think my original answer was wrong, because I ignored the potential for a line to have a slope of -5. If 1 line is -5 and the second line is -1/2, then you can have 2 negative slopes in addition to a negative x int and positive x int.

I'm switching to C - if both of them are crossing the Y axis at positive or negative, the only way they can have a negative x intercept and a positive x intercept is if they are sloping in opposite directions (I think).
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by abhi0697 » Mon May 16, 2011 6:36 am
IMO C
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by ankurmit » Mon May 16, 2011 6:55 am
pls post OA
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Ankur mittal
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