Is the slope 'm' of the line y = mx + c positive?

Question

(1) The x and y intercepts are both negative.
(2) The line passes through the first quadrant.

Skywalker18 · Answer

line y = mx + c 
Y intercept of the given line is y=c
X intercept of the given line is 
mx+c = 0
=> mx = -c
=> x = - c/m

(1) The x and y intercepts are both negative.
Sign of Y intercept y=c is -ve
Sign of X intercept x=-c/m is -ve
x= - c/m
=>m = - c/x = -ve * -ve / -ve 
 = -ve

Sufficient

(2) The line passes through the first quadrant
Not sufficient as we can not determine the sign of slope m

Answer A

AndyNeedsGMAT · Answer

Slope of a line segment is -y/x, where y is the y-intercept and x is the x-intercept of the line.
1 => Clearly, the slope is negative. A sufficient.
2 => Not sufficient. This is because both +ve as well as -ve slope can be in the first quadrant.

Answer A

TeamGMATIFY · Answer

Required: Is solpe of y = mx + c positive? Statement 1 : The x and y intercepts are both negative. The figure would be something like: negative xy coordinates.JPG Hence we can deduce the slope of the line SUFFICIENT Statement 2 : The line passes through the first quadrant We can have the following lines: various possible lines.JPG INSUFFICIENT Option A

AndyNeedsGMAT · Answer

Is this solution correct at all ?

A similar approach on the GMATPrep Qs does not give me correct results:
"In the XY place is the slope of line k = 0 ?
1) The X-intercept of K is 0
2) The Y-intercept of K is 0"

- with my approach I found the answer to be C.
As the slope of a line = -(Y intercept)/(X intercept)

while the OA is E.

Where I am going wrong ?

sudhirmadaan · Answer

chetan2u  please let me know if my reasoning is wrong.

slope =0 means line is parallel to x axis, with A and B statement together , you only get one point is origin, you still not sure if the line is parallel to x axis.

chetan2u · Answer

HI,
you are correct..
Slope 0 means the line is parallel to x- axis..
But as you have pointed out that what we know from combined statement is that ORIGIN is a point on the line..
how does this line EXTEND thereafter cannot be ascertained from the given info..

JLAR2107 · Answer

Don't these two statements contradict one another? Is that allowed on the GMAT? Maybe I'm just missing something fundamentally but if both the x and the y intercepts are negative I don't think we can we cross through quadrant 1.

Is the slope 'm' of the line y = mx + c positive?

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