If Joe earns $38,000 a year:  1. How much does he make a month?
2. If his budget per month is $3,200, can he afford that on his salary?

1. Approximately $3,167 a month
2. No, Joe would be $33 short of his budget

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.