Joanna went school supply shopping. She spent $21.45 on notebooks and pencils. Notebooks cost $1.97 each and pencils cost $1.16 each. She bought a total of 15 notebooks and pencils. How many of each did she buy? A.
5 notebooks; 10 pencils
B.
3 notebooks; 12 pencils
C.
8 notebooks; 7 pencils
D.
10 notebooks; 5 pencils

First step is to get rid of the square root. remember that a square root is the same as raising to the (1/2) power. see below: multiply exponents per exponent rules to get: remember you subtract exponents from the denominator and add exponents in the numerator so: simplify further: so a is the correct choice. if you don't understand this google exponent rules and it will you understand. look at the image results.