adkikani wrote:
Quote:
Is r > s ?
(1) -r + s < 0
(2) r < | s |
VeritasKarishma GMATPrepNow MentorTutoring chetan2uHow about below approach for analyzing St 2:
|s| can only be 0 or +ve.Since r<|s|, correspondingly r can be -ve (if s=0) or r can be 0 (if s is +ve)
But in both above cases, I got r<s. Hence I can UNIQUELY ans q stem as NO.
Where did I falter?
Hello,
adkikani. Thank you for tagging me. In Statement (2), what is keeping you from trying a negative value for
s? Remember,
the absolute value of a number is a measure of its distance from 0, which is why that value is always positive. A real-world example I give with some of my students on the concept is that if I were a skilled dancer--I am not--perhaps I could moonwalk my way to the door, but I would not say I had walked negative 8 feet to get there because I had gone backwards. Distance is a positive unit. All that Statement (2) tells us that the distance that
s lies from 0 must be greater than the value of
r. You might pick 10,000 for
r, but
s could be -10,001, and its absolute value, its distance from 0, would be greater than a value of 10,000. The question then becomes,
Is 10,000 greater than -10,001? The answer would be
yes, and that creates a problem. Perhaps you are conflating the absolute value part of Statement (2) with the inequality of the
original question, which includes no absolute value symbol.
I hope that helps. Good luck, going forward.
- Andrew
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