If x and y are integers, is x y?

Question

If x and y are integers, is x > y?

(1) 0 < x^y < 1
(2) y is odd

Luckisnoexcuse · Answer

(1) 0 < x^y<1 this can only happen when y is negative if x is positive x can be greater than or less than y depending upon whether y is even or odd y=even, xy y= odd, x>y if x is negative x can be greater than y or less than y depending upon whether y is even or odd y=even, xy Not sufficient (2) y is odd Not sufficient On combining both we can answer the question Hence C

Chakolate · Answer

(1) If x^y is positive, then x is positive. If it is less than one, then y is negative. Sufficient.
(2) y could be positive or negative, insufficient.

Answer A.

reachskishore · Answer

1) if x^y is less than 1, it does'nt matter if y is odd or even. To satisfy this condition, x has to be positive and y has to be negative. Hence x > y. Suff
2) No information about x. x can be anything here. Not Suff.

laxpro2001 · Answer

This one can be tricky if you rush through it.

As some users have posted, at first glance, it appears that x must be positive however it is important to remember that even exponents can mask signs or make negative numbers into positive.

Consider x = -2;
Is there any power we can raise -2 to to make it a positive fraction less than 1?
Well to make it positive we have to raise it to an even exponent and to make it a fraction we have to raise it to a negative exponent; Thus raising it to a negative even exponent could satisfy the requirements.
Both y = -2 and y = -4 work, however they give different answer to the question "is x>y?" thus more information is needed.

To finish this off quickly - the 2nd statement tells us very little on its own so we'll need to combine it with statement I;
y is odd means that x cannot be negative as there is no way we can make it a positive number;
Together this information is sufficient

exc4libur · Answer

(x,y)=integers (1) 0 < x^y < 1 insufic y=negative x=-3, y=-2: x^y=1/(-3)^2=1/9, xy (2) y is odd insufic (1 and 2) sufic y=odd_negative x=positive x>y Ans (C)

If x and y are integers, is x > y?

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