The population of a Midwest industrial town decreased from 213,000 to 209,000 in just 2years. Assuming that this trend continues, what will the population be after an additional 3 years?

The decimal expansion would be .27 repeated

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.