Past exam of the mathematics course of the year 1 of the natural sciences course of the University of Cambridge / 2003 / Paper 2 / 6 / Solution

Use Gaussian elimination. The last equation gives $y=c-z$, and the second then gives $x=b-4c-2z$. Substitute these into the first equation to obtain $3b-10c-z=a$. Back-substitution yieldsThe linear system has matrix formThe coefficients of the arbitrary right-hand side in the solved expressions are the rows of the matrix inverse. ThereforeMultiplying the original matrix by this candidate gives the identity matrix; its determinant is $-1$, so the solution is unique for every $(a,b,c)$.