JAMB 1986 · UME · Q11

Quadratics & their graphs

The ages of Tosan and Isa differ by 6 and the product of their ages is 187. Write their ages in the form $(x, y)$ , where $x > y$ .

Worked solution (try it first)

Let the younger age be $y$ , so the older is $y + 6$ .
Their product is $y(y + 6) = 187$ .
Rearrange: $y^2 + 6y - 187 = 0$ , which factorises as $(y + 17)(y - 11) = 0$ .
An age is positive, so $y = 11$ and the older age is 17.
So the ages are $(17, 11)$ , option C.

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