Question

Two consecutive negative integers have a product of 12. What are the integers?

Answer 1

Well 12 = 3×4 thus answer would be -3 and -4

For algebra solution, we can let smallest integer be n then that would be n(n+1) = 12, so we can go ahead and solve for n:

n(n+1) = 12

n² + n - 12 = 0

(n-3)(n+4) = 0

n = 3 or -4

Since we need negative integers, n would be -4 and then next integer (n+1) would be -3.

Hope this helps.