Blue Book, pg 361, help

DukeofFunk
Sun, 01 Jul 2007 16:47:53 +0000

Ok, well to solve the problem the long way, solve each equation individually. Get the abs value sign by itself, so

|x+3| = 2
|y+1| = 6

Since they’re both within absolute value signs, you have to set equations for both positive and negative. So it’d be like

x+3 = 2 AND x+3=-2

ditto with the y equation. For x, that’ll get you -1 and -5. For y, you’ll get 5 and -7. Then since it’s asking for all the possible x+y’s, you add the different combinations together (-1 + 5, -5 + 5, -7 + -1, and -7 ±5) and take the absolute value of the number. So it’d be 4, 0, 8, and 12. You can’t come up with 10, so that’s the answer.

There’s probably a simpler way to do this, but this is how I figured it out.