sat suite question viewer
The product of two positive integers is . If the first integer is greater than twice the second integer, what is the smaller of the two integers?
Explanation
The correct answer is . Let represent the first integer and represent the second integer. If the first integer is greater than twice the second integer, then . It's given that the product of the two integers is ; therefore . Substituting for in this equation yields , which can be written as . Subtracting from each side of this equation yields . The left-hand side of this equation can be factored by finding two values whose product is , or , and whose sum is . The two values whose product is and whose sum is are and . Thus, the equation can be rewritten as , which is equivalent to , or . By the zero product property, it follows that or . Subtracting from both sides of the equation yields . Dividing both sides of this equation by yields . Since is a positive integer, the value of isn't . Adding to both sides of the equation yields . Substituting for in the equation yields . Dividing both sides of this equation by yields . Therefore, the two integers are and , so the smaller of the two integers is .