12. At the end of Art class, the students must clean up their work stations. When working together, Nicki and James can clean their work station in 12 minutes. When they clean the work station
independently, it takes James 10 minutes longer than Nicki. Write and solve an equation to
determine the length of time that it takes each of them to the work station on their own. (4 marks)

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.