Past exam of the year 1 of the computer science course of the University of Oxford / 2014 / Discrete mathematics, continuous mathematics and probability / 3 / a / Solution

The relation is reflexive because $a-a=2\cdot 0$. It is symmetric because $a-b=2k$ implies $b-a=2(-k)$. It is transitive because $a-b=2k$ and $b-c=2\ell$ imply $a-c=2(k+\ell )$. It is therefore an equivalence relation, namely congruence modulo an integer for modulus two. Its two equivalence classes consist of the even integers and the odd integers.