The population of a city decreases by 4% per year. If this year's population is 171,000, what will next year's population be, to the nearest individual?

I'm sure the answer is a

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.