All GMAT Math Resources
Example Questions
Example Question #54 : Understanding Exponents
What will the last digit of be ?
For any positive integer whose last digit is , the last digit if this integer raised to any power is the same as the last digit of . So, the last digit of is the same as the last digit of . Let's try to find a pattern in the last digits of the powers of 3:
For , the last digit is 3
is 9
is 7
is 1
is 3
So the pattern repeats every 4 consecutive powers. We therefore simply have to divide 47 by 4 to get a remainder of 3. The last digit is given by , or 7. To get the final answer, we simply have to multiply 7 by 8; we get 56, whose last digit is , which is our final answer.
Example Question #55 : Understanding Exponents
Fill in the circle with a number so that this polynomial is prime:
Some trinomials of the form are factorable as
where , .
Therefore, if the number in the circle makes the polynomial factorable, it can be factored as the product of two whole numbers whose sum is 17.
These numbers are:
Of the five choices, only 56 is not among these numbers, so it makes the polynomial prime. It is the correct choice.
Example Question #56 : Understanding Exponents
Fill in the circle with a number so that this polynomial is not prime:
Some trinomials of the form are factorable as
where , .
Therefore, we are looking for an integer which can be factored as the product of two integers whose difference is 9.
We can start with 1 and 10 and work our way up:
The products will increase, so we can stop, having found our two numbers, 2 and 11. Their product, 22, is the correct choice.
Example Question #57 : Understanding Exponents
Fill in the circle with a number so that this polynomial is prime:
If is not prime, then, as a quadratic trinomial of the form it is factorable as
where and .
Therefore, we are looking for a whole number that is not the difference of two factors of 60. The integers that are such a difference are
Of the choices, only 23 is not on the list, so it is the correct choice.
Example Question #58 : Understanding Exponents
Examine these two polynomials, each of which is missing a number:
Write a whole number inside each shape so that the first polynomial is a factor of the second.
Write 64 in the square and 4.096 in the circle
Write 8 in the square and 64 in the circle
Write 64 in the square and 512 in the circle
Write 64 in the square and 64 in the circle
Write 8 in the square and 512 in the circle
Write 64 in the square and 512 in the circle
The factoring pattern to look for in the second polynomial is the sum of cubes, so the number in the circle must be a perfect cube of a whole number . We can write this polynomial as
which can be factored as
By the condition of the problem, , so the number that replaces the square is , and the number that replaces the circle is .
Example Question #81 : Algebra
Simplify.
There are different ways to approach this problem. We just need to remember three things:
Keeping those in mind, we can simplify the numerator and coefficients:
I'm going to move the negative exponents (number 2 in the list above) in order to make them positive:
We can now simplify the numerator again with the exponents (number 3) and the exponents (number 1):
Example Question #61 : Understanding Exponents
Simplify:
Unable to simplify
The first thing we must do is distribute the exponents outside of the parentheses across each expression (remembering of course that exponents set to another exponent are multiplied).
The last step is to follow the rules of exponent addition/subtraction:
and
Therefore:
Example Question #62 : Exponents
Which of the following is true if ?
The equation has no solution.
To answer this question, note that
and
.
Therefore, since
it follows that
and
.
Example Question #62 : Understanding Exponents
Solve for :
The equation has no solution.
Rewrite both sides as powers of 2 using the exponent rules as follows:
Since powers of the same base are equal, set the exponents equal to each other:
Example Question #63 : Understanding Exponents
Solve for :
The equation has no solution.
Rewrite both sides as powers of 3 using the exponent rules as follows:
Since powers of the same base are equal, set the exponents equal to each other: