Question

The sum of two consecutive integer is three times their different. What is the larger number?

Answer 1

Answer:

The difference of two consecutive integers is always going to be 1. So the sum must be 3. And there are really only two consecutive integers whose sum is 3: 1 and 2. The larger number is 2, so that’s your answer.

But if you want to do this the hard way:

Let  a  be the larger integer and let  a−1  be the smaller integer.

Their sum is  a+(a−1)=2a−1

Their difference is  a−(a−1)=1

From the problem, we know that  2a−1=3(1)

2a−1=3

2a=4

a=2

Step-by-step explanation: