Then Shubhlin told, 'Look, I had told before! There had to be an answer to my question. But why do we need the negative numbers?' Once again you were being stared upon by a lot of curious eyes. After looking at old shoe (with a hole atop) of Shubhlin, you replied: Suppose you have 4 gold coins. In mathematical terms I can say that you have +4 coins. After you spent 2 gold coins for food and 2 gold coins for clothes, you want a shoe. So, you borrowed 5 gold coins from somebody. Now if I make the same statement that you have +5 coins, is it true or false?

True

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False

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Solution

The correct option is B False
When you had your own money, it could be represented like +4. Now, when you have borrowed 5 gold coins, we can't represent it as +5 because it would mean that you have 5 gold coins of your own. So, to represent this and similar scenarios, we use negative numbers/negative integers. So, the statement is false. The right statement will be: 'Shubhlin has -5 gold coins.'

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'Yes, that makes perfect sense. I understood the concept of negative numbers', said Shubhlin as other mathematicians nodded in agreement. Then you asked one more question, 'If you have understood the concepts, tell me if you have -5 gold coins and you earn 15 more gold coins. How many gold coins you have now, mathematically?

At this Shubhlin started thinking and told: I will have-

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