Unit
Radical Expressions and Equations
MA, Stanford University
Teaching in the San Francisco Bay Area
Alissa is currently a teacher in the San Francisco Bay Area and Brightstorm users love her clear, concise explanations of tough concepts
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MA, Stanford University
Teaching in the San Francisco Bay Area
Alissa is currently a teacher in the San Francisco Bay Area and Brightstorm users love her clear, concise explanations of tough concepts
After you solve a radical equation algebraically, check to make sure your solution makes sense. A solution would be called extraneous if algebraically you didn't make any errors, but your x-value would be violating the rule that whatever is under the square root can not be negative. Check your solutions to make sure they're not outside the domain by substituting them in for x in the original equation. Graphically, to find a solution, you'd graph each side of the equation separately and look for where the lines intersect. An extraneous solution will not show up as an intersection point because of the domain limitations on a square root graph.
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