What you can do is plug in 6 and start by doing the first machine first, then the second. If this doesn't work, do the second machine, then the first machine.

The order that works is second machine, then first machine.

Second Machine:

y = $(6)^{2} -6$ = 36 - 6 = 30

Plug into first machine now.

First Machine:

y = $\sqrt{(30) - 5} = \sqrt{25} = 5$

We see that the result is 5.

b. If we were to do the order of second machine, then first machine, we will never get a negative result (or -5 for that matter), due to the fact that you can't algebraically square root a negative number.

However, if we were to do the order of first machine, second machine, we can get a negative number. To get -5, we plug in 6 for x in the first machine, getting an answer of 1. We plug this into the second machine, getting 1^2 - 6, which results in -5.

1-7. The absolute value of a value is the positive version of that value.

a. |54| = 54

b. $-|-7\frac{3}{5}|$ = $-7\frac{3}{5}$

c. |3| - |-1| = 3 - 1 = 2

d. |2.2 - 5.13| = |-2.93| = 2.93

1-8.

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(5 boxes on each side)

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(6 boxes on each side)

b. The amount of squares on each side of the figure increases by 1.

c. There would be 1 square, because we know that the pattern is there is 2 squares added to the next figure, 1 at each end. If we go back a figure, we take away 2 squares.

1-9.

a. -42 - 17 = -59

b. 8 - (-9) = 8 + 9 = 17

c. 8(-9) = -72

d. -42 ÷ (-7) = 6

e. -2(-3)(-4) = 6(-4) = 24

f. -18 - 7 = -25

g. $(-5)^{2}$ = 25