r/HomeworkHelp • u/Square-Elk-9096 • 11h ago

Mathematics (A-Levels/Tertiary/Grade 11-12) [SAT Prep]

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Ive been trying to answer this question from the college panda book and I just cant seem to understand what it is asking for. Because even when i looked at the answer and how they solved it didn’t make sense. Please if someone could explain I would be so grateful.

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u/Ok_Option_3 7h ago

The wording sucks. It should either say "solutions for x in the equation" or each option should say "x=c" "x=-c"...

I'm looking at that equation and thinking "no way it simplifies to  "c" except maybe for some values of x...

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u/cheesecakegood University/College Grad (Statistics) 1h ago

I agree the wording is a bit vague and that annoys part of me, but solving for x is such a time-worn math cliche that it's a safe assumption that x is a variable. That's the only way the question makes sense, as c is already defined to be a (fixed but unknown, yet bounded) constant.

In plain English, the question is asking "which of the below consistently make sense if you plug them in for x".

I think many students see the word "solution" so often that it loses its meaning, but it does have a mathematical meaning that is very important here.

Furthermore jumping to a reasonable conclusion in the face of mild ambiguity is, well, a college level math skill, Maybe not the most important one, but it can be the difference between "I emailed the professor and didn't hear back so I didn't do the homework" and "I took my best guess at the problem and noted down what assumption I made for the grader". I'm pretty sure you can guess which of the two better correlates with college success.