Skip to main content
OlympiadHQ

Browse · harp

Print

imc

prealgebra junior

Problem

What is the value of ?
(A)
(B)
(C)
(D)
Solution
Note that the square root of any number squared is always the absolute value of the squared number because the square root function will only return a nonnegative number. By squaring both and , we see that , thus is negative, so we must take the absolute value of , which is just . Knowing this, the first term in the expression equals and the second term is , and summing the two gives .
Final answer
D