Thursday, 22 August 2013

Confusion about meaning of this question. High school Algebra level.

Confusion about meaning of this question. High school Algebra level.

The product of two numbers is 10. One of them is $a$. Express their sum in
terms of $a$.



The factors of 10 are 1,2,5,10. Thus $a \in {1,2,5,10}$ Thus the sum can
be either 7 or 11.
Now how does one express the sum in terms of $a$?
How do I express the non-$a$ factor?
I can only think of $a + 10/a$. But that seems too simple, and I feel like
I am not understanding the question correctly.

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