Today, Austin's math lesson included the last of adding and subtracting radical expressions, which meant we had to simplify radicals. Here is one of the many problems that gave us issues today:
(Unit 7, pg 57 of "Math gr 9" LifePac, by Alpha Omega Publishing)
Now, when I look at this final answer, I think that 38 should be subtracted from 12. Austin thinks it should be looked at as (2 r5) - (3 r2) and then squared, which (as Austin protested) certainly does give a simplified answer of 18. I'm not even sure who is right, him and/or the book.
I tried our table calculator and a scientific calculator. Then I found this bad boy, a radical expressions calculator on math portal.org
Here's a link to a radical expressions calculator:
http://www.mathportal.org/calculators/radical-expressions/simplifying-radical-expressions.php
It took us forever to fully understand trinomials, which may be the problem with these perticular problems. Dude can do trinomials in his sleep, but doing them with square roots is a new problem for us. Before we move on to dividing radical expressions, I need to find some similar practice work with radical expressions. I'll share my free worksheet findings here:
This website offers attractive free practice worksheets. I printed the 'operating system with radical expressions' a few days ago and dividing radicals today under the radical expressions section:
https://www.kutasoftware.com/freeia2.html
Has anyone else experienced these kinds of 'simplified' math problems? I'm not sure if it's a 'trinomial radical expression,' just a complex radical expression, an incomplete simplification...WE definitely need more practice with this one before we move on to dividing radical expressions.
