Question

The ages of ten students of a group are given below. The ages have been recorded in years and months: \[8 - 6,{\text{ }}9 - 0,{\text{ }}8 - 4,{\text{ }}9 - 3,{\text{ }}7 - 8,{\text{ }}8 - 11,{\text{ }}8 - 7,{\text{ }}9 - 2,{\text{ }}7 - 10,{\text{ }}8 - 8\], What is the highest age?

Answer 1

Hint: In this question we write the ages in terms of years and months and then check which age is the highest among all the ages.

Complete step-by-step solution:
From the given data, the following table could be made:

Students	Age
Student $1$	\[8\] years \[6\] months
Student $2$	\[9\] years \[0\] months
Student $3$	\[8\] years \[4\] months
Student $4$	\[9\] years \[3\] months
Student $5$	\[7\] years \[8\] months
Student $6$	\[8\] years \[11\] months
Student $7$	\[8\] years \[7\] months
Student $8$	\[9\] years \[2\;\]months
Student $9$	\[7\] years \[10\] months
Student $10$	\[8\] years \[8\] months

First we have to check all the rows in the table to see which student has the highest age.
Since the highest number in terms of year is $9$ years which student $2$, student $4$ and student $8$ have.
Therefore, all the other students except Student $2$, Student $4$ and Student $8$ are exempted from the comparison.
Now we compare the highest number in terms of months of the $3$ students i.e. Student $2$, Student $4$ and Student $8$.
From the table, we see that Student $4$ has the highest number of months which is $3$ month in comparison to Student $2$ and student $8$ therefore he has the highest age among all the students therefore the eldest of all the $10$ students is student $4$.

$\therefore $ The highest age is $9 - 3$ which is $9$ years and $3$ months which is the age of Student $4$.

Note: The first number represents the year and the second number which is after the – (dash) represents the month.
During comparison the first number should be checked and the highest number should be selected. After the $1^{st}$ number is selected, the $2^{nd}$ number should be selected such that it is the highest.