<p>do negative numbers can be considered even/odd on the SAT?</p>
<p>I found this question that asks how many consecutive odd integers when multiplied equal a positive number less then 400. I was inclined to grid 10 (all consecutive pairs lower than 19/21) but then I asked myself - can -1/-3 be considered a consecutive odd pair?</p>
<p>the question was not in a CB book so the given answer (10) may be not right in the real SAT..</p>
<p>I would be curious as to how they came up with 10. If you used only positive numbers:1, 3, 5, 7…the answer appears to be 4. 1<em>3</em>5<em>7= 105, once you multiply by the next consecutive odd number, 9, you are over 400. If you include negative integers, remembering that you must have an even number of negative integers to keep the product positive, you get 6. -3</em>-1<em>1</em>3<em>5</em>7=315. Again, multiplying by 9 brings you well over 400.</p>
<p>Yes negative integers can be considered odd or even. Where did this question originate?</p>
<p>Negative numbers can be odd or even.</p>
<p>Even numbers are defined as numbers that can be written as 2 times an integer. Odd numbers cannot be written as 2 times an integer. </p>
<p>If the answer was 10, I believe that the book did not think of the negative number pairs/ combos. I think its a bad problem overall. </p>
<p>Could you let us know which book it was? Even respected books like Barrons and PR make mistakes like that once in a while.</p>
<p>The question is from PR practice test. I know I shouldn’t do their tests but I already did all CB tests.</p>
<p>for pmian - I missed the word “pairs” on the question. it asks “how many pairs of consecutive odd integers when multiplied…”
19/21 17/19 15/17 ----1/3 these are the 10 pairs the book referred to. another 10 would be -19/-21 -17/-19 -15/-17 and so on.</p>
<p>thank you both</p>
<p>There are actually 21 pairs in (-21, -19), (-19, -17), …, (19, 21). You missed the pair (-1, 1).</p>
<p>In my opinion, well-respected test preparation companies shouldn’t be making obvious mistakes like that. Unless the problem said the integers had to be positive, the answer “10” is wrong.</p>
<p>Well-respected? </p>
<p>Not the term I would use to describe PR.</p>
<p>Yeah, I should’ve used a better phrase.</p>
<p>“well-known.”</p>
<p>their pracice tests are very inadequate…there are sometimes full sections of math that are too easy…and sometimes they ask questions on correcting passages part of the writing section that are actually CR type of questions. a lot of the questions on the writing section offer not one correct answer but only a “closest to correct” answer that is supposed to be right.</p>
<p>to MITer - (-1,1) can’t be right because it supposed to be a positve number under 400, however the question doesn’t state that the numbers themselves should be positive.</p>
<p>Ah, didn’t see the “positive” part. Either way 10 is still incorrect.</p>
<p>Yeah, that’s kind of what the SAT is supposed to do…offer one correct choice and a bunch of nearly correct ones.</p>