Transcript Difficulty: Medium First, 3 is subtracted from x and the square root of the difference is taken. Then, 5 is added to.

Difficulty: Medium
First, 3 is subtracted from x and the square root of the difference is taken.
Then, 5 is added to the result, giving a final result of 9. What is the value of x?
a) 3
b) 4
c) 5
d) 16
e) 19
HINT
When 3 is subtracted from x, the result can be written as x – 3. The square root
of this difference is x  3 . What does the rest of the question tell you
about x  3 ?
E: 19
EXPLANATION:
When 3 is subtracted from x, the result is x – 3. The square root of this difference
is x  3. When 5 is added to x  3 , the final result is 9. This can be written
as x  3 + 5 = 9. Subtracting 5 from both sides gives the equation x  3 = 4.
Squaring both sides of this equation gives x – 3 = 16, or x = 19.