Question

if the sum of 5 positive intergers is 28. what is the largest possible value of the five integers?

Answer 1

Are all of the integers distinct? Or can we repeat the same number? (i.e. 1,1,1,1,24 vs 1,2,3,4,18)

Answer 2

that is all the info i am given

Answer 3

It's either 24 or 18 then. 24 if the numbers are not distinct, 18 otherwise.

Answer 4

ok

Answer 5

can you explain to me why i would be 24?

Answer 6

If you have 5 positive integers, and you are looking to maximize one of those numbers, that means the other 4 numbers have to be as small as possible.

The smallest possible positive integer that can be used is 1, so we assign 1 to all four of those numbers (i.e. 1,1,1,1,x, where x is the largest possible number).

So now we add up all four of those 1s, which will give us 4.

Find the largest possible number by subtracting 4 from 28 and getting 24.

Answer 7

ok, thank you

Answer 8

No problem!