Question

The disctance between -8 and 5 on the number line can be found by which expression??

Answer 1

It's A.  First of all, one of the only 2 things in math that will NEVER be negative is distances/lengths and times.  You have a distance here, so because one of your 2 numbers is negative, you have to take the absolute value of the difference.  -8-5 = -11, but the absolute value of that is 11.  Put the numbers on a number line and count the units between -8 and +5 and there are 11 units between those 2 numbers.