2013 AMC 10B Problems/Problem 5

Problem

Positive integers $a$ and $b$ are each less than $6$ . What is the smallest possible value for $2 \cdot a - a \cdot b$ ?

$\textbf{(A)}\ -20\qquad\textbf{{(B)}}\ -15\qquad\textbf{{(C)}}\ -10\qquad\textbf{{(D)}}\ 0\qquad\textbf{{(E)}}\ 2$

Solution 1

Factoring the equation gives $a(2 - b)$ . From this we can see that to obtain the least possible value, $2 - b$ should be negative, and should be as small as possible. To do so, $b$ should be maximized. Because $2 - b$ is negative, we should maximize the positive value of $a$ as well. The maximum values of both $a$ and $b$ are $5$ , so the answer is $5(2 - 5) = \boxed{\textbf{(B)}\ -15}$ .

2013 AMC 10B (Problems • Answer Key • Resources)
Preceded by Problem 4	Followed by Problem 6
1 • 2 • 3 • 4 • 5 • 6 • 7 • 8 • 9 • 10 • 11 • 12 • 13 • 14 • 15 • 16 • 17 • 18 • 19 • 20 • 21 • 22 • 23 • 24 • 25
All AMC 10 Problems and Solutions

The problems on this page are copyrighted by the Mathematical Association of America's American Mathematics Competitions.

Page

Toolbox

Search

2013 AMC 10B Problems/Problem 5

Problem

Solution 1

See Also