Bill regularly earns $9.00 per hour working at a grocery store. However, he earns 1.5 times his
regular hourly wage, when he works more than
15 hours in a given week. What are Bill’s total
wages for a week in which he works 23 hours?
(Note: the higher rate of pay only applies to
hours worked in excess of 15.)

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.