Problem Solving

Still confused.

If we decided that there must be 3 integers in the set (which I agree, I think it is safe to assume that based on what lunarpower said) then how can statement II be true? To me, statements I,II,III cannot be true. Resulting in choice E. What am I missing?

tnis0612 wrote:Still confused.

If we decided that there must be 3 integers in the set (which I agree, I think it is safe to assume that based on what lunarpower said) then how can statement II be true? To me, statements I,II,III cannot be true. Resulting in choice E. What am I missing?

Statement (II) could and could not be true.

If the number of integers in the set is more than one (i.e. three), and if the smallest of the integers is zero, then all the other integers are positive numbers greater than zero. Adding zero and all of these positive numbers will not equal to zero as indicated in the question -- you'll only get a larger positive number. In this case, (II) cannot be true.

However, if there is only one integer in the set and that one integer is zero, then you only have to account for this zero integer when summing up the set -- the sum is equal to zero -- which satisfies what is indicated in the question. In this case, (II) is true.

As long as we don't know how many integers are in the set, statement (II) can be true or cannot be true. I don't think lunarpower suggested that there must be 3 integers.

tnis0612 wrote:Still confused.

If we decided that there must be 3 integers in the set (which I agree, I think it is safe to assume that based on what lunarpower said) then how can statement II be true? To me, statements I,II,III cannot be true. Resulting in choice E. What am I missing?

You are not missing anything, if we DO decide that there must be 3 integers in the set, none of the statements is true. However, you should adapt to every single statement, not all at once, to see if it CANNOT be true. II can obviously be true if K=1 (k integer = 0) and nothing in the question itself forbids it (assuming what lunarpower said is true, and I think we all agree it is)

Hope this helps.

Got it. In my opinion what forbids there only being one integer is the fact that, like lunarpower said, it says integerS. If there is only one integer then it is not consistent with the question. Either way I think we agree they would be more clear on the GMAT.

Or so we hope

cramya wrote:I think the answer is III only.

k does not have to be greater than 1 (no where given) - This is the catch to this problem in my opinion

k could be 1 consecutive integer i.e 0 The smallest /largest of the k integers are both zero


The product of the k integers is positive -2 -1 1 2



The largest of the k integers is negative - This cannot be true since there has to be some positives to make the sum 0 or just 0 which is non negative

Cramya,
nothing is told about K. if k = 1 and the int is 0, does the problem break down? or is it still valid?

thanks
-V

lunarpower wrote:as many posters have already noted, the correct answer to this problem is (d).

you guys can rest easy re: the trick thing. i simply can't imagine that the gmat would actually include a cheap shot such as statement (ii), which is only true when k = 0.

Actually, statement (ii) is true when k=1 and the set is simply {0}.

We're often tested on our knowledge of the properties of 0 (and even whether we remember that 0 is in the running for membership in sets). I agree that it's unlikely that we'd have to worry about a null set, but a 1 member set of just 0 would be, in my opinion, fair game on the GMAT.