jyotsnamahajan wrote:
Is there a better way to solve the second statement? Using numbers as examples takes time and leaves rool for making error
For Statement 1, solving for r+s, r-s, rs and r/s clearly indicates r+s as the largest number.
For Statement 2, lets assume the following cases.
Case 1: r is +ve, and s is +ve=> r+s and r*s is definitely bigger than r-s
=> but its hard to discern which one will be the largest.
=>Please note, you can only take cases where r-s is < than r/s because r/s may or may not be bigger than r-s
eg: if r=4 and s=1, r-s<r/s; but if r=6 and s=2, r-s>r/s
Case 2: r is +ve and s is -ve=> r-s will always be greater than r+s
=> since this case does not satisfy the condition in Statement 2 (r-s is the least number), we can disregard this case.
Case 3: r is -ve and s is -ve=> Here too r+s will always be greater than r-s
=> since this case does not satisfy the condition in Statement 2 (r-s is the least number), we can disregard this case.
Case 4: r is -ve and s is +ve=> analysing the r+s, r-s, rs and r/s no particular pattern is discernible.
=> so we can choose numbers to find cases where r-s is the least but there are different answers for the max
All in all, after looking at the cases, Case 2 and Case 3 can be disregarded and Case 1 and Case 4 does not give you a constant maximum.
During the test, If you start with Case 1, given that case 1 does not give you a number which will always be maximum, you can strike Statement 2 as insufficient