Bhai wrote:
gmatblast wrote:
The correct reasoning is as follows:
statemenet 2 says that 2 is in S. This will lead to the conclusion that -2 is in S. So we know that 2 (=a)as well as -2(=b) are in S. So ab = -4 is in S. Thus the second statement is suffecient.
Answer B.
How did you make b = -2. I did not understand the logic.
Bhai
I am not sure if it caused any confusion when I referred to statement 2. In the problem statement we are given TWO characteristics of set S.
Then we are given two statements to do the suffeciency test.
Now question: Is -4 in S?
STATEMENT 1 : 1 is in S
let us apply both the
characteristics one by one
Applying the first characteristics:
1 is in S => -1 is in S
So S = {1, -1} right?
Now apply the second characteritics
We know that 1 and -1 are member of S. so based on second charactreistics, (1)(-1) = -1 should be in S. But this does not add any value because we already know that -1 is member oF S.
So after applying both the characteristics, statement 1 does nt say anything about numbers other than 1 and -1. So other numbers could be memebrs of S or they could not be. We do not know. So statement 1 INSUFFICIENT.
STATEMENT 2 : 2 is in S
Again let us use both the given characterisics of S one by one.
Applying the first characteristic:
2 is in S => -2 is in S
So we now know that S = {2, -2} CORRECT?
Now apply the second characteristic
We know that 2 and -2 are members of S. so based on second charactreistics, (2)(-2) = -4 is in S.
So this answers the question in YES. So statement 2 is SUFFECIENT.
Note that we can further conclude that since -4 is in S, +4 is in S as well. (based on the first characteristic). Now we can also say that since +4 and -4 are in S (4)(-4) = -16 is in S (based on second characteristic). This will be never ending cycle. Of course for this problem, we need to stop as soon as we identified that -4 is the member of S.
Hope this helps.
close
