A high school band held a bake sale. The number of muffins, m, sold was five less than twice the number of cookies, c, sold. The band sold a total of 49 muffins and cookies. How many muffins did the band sell?

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.