Pens come in boxes of 12, and pencils come in boxes of 15. Patricia wants to
purchase the least number of pens and
pencils so that she will have exactly one
pen for every pencil
. How many boxes of
pens and pencils should Patricia purchase?

5 boxes of pens
4 boxes of pencils

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.