Square root of a-3 plus 5 = a

Sara needs to take a taxi to get to the movies the taxi charges $4.00 for the first mile and then $2.75 for each mile after that if the total charge is $20.50 then how far was sara’s taxi ride to the movie

How do you solve a question like this?

Since opening night, attendance at play a has increased steadily, while attendance at play b first rose and then fell. equations modeling the daily attendance y at each play are shown below, where x is the number of days since opening night. on what day(s) was the attendance the same at both plays? what was the attendance? play a: y = 8x + 191 play b: y = -x^2 + 26x + 126