Question

Suppose A and B represent two different school populations where A > B and A and B must be greater than 0. Which of the following expressions is the largest? Explain why. Show all work necessary.
2(A + B)
(A + B)2
A2 + B2
A2 − B2

Answer 1

We can reject the last one: subtracting a non-zero value will result in a smaller value.

So now we have:

2(A + B)
(A + B)2
A2 + B2

If all of them are mulptiplications, then they are all equivalent!

I mean by this, if what you meant is this:


2*(A + B)
(A + B)*2
A*2 + B*2

If there is no sign, then the multiplication sign is implicit,


and all of these expressions say exactly the same: two of A and two of B.