Question

Given 4 percent of (2a+b) is 18 and a is a positive integer. What is the greatest possible value of B? A) 450 B) 449 C) 448 D) 43 E) 8

Answer 1

E.

Answer 2

You can interpret the word problem like this:

0.04*(2a+b)=18

You write 0.04 because that represents 4%. Solving this equation for b gives you:

b=450-2a

and we know that a is positive and the quantity 2a is only making b smaller because it is subracting from 450 so if we want to maximize b then we should say a is zero. The max is then 450.

Which is choice A from your problem.