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I'm so calm that I'm bordering on being comatose, but I'm not pleased by what seems like back-pedalling in your reply: the question is either properly stated or it's not, at least at this level. Yes, the question asks us to square the expression, giving (for positive a and b): a + b + 2...

Anomalousdecay, I've gotta say that I'm more worried about the screamingly obvious loopholes: I can live with the unnoticeable ones. OK, enough smart-arsing around from me. Thank's for a genuinely positive and helpful reply.

What of the students who, for some strange reason, find themselves doing this subject and who do know better? What if they really did try thinking through the problem carefully, and through some miracle noticed a = 0, sqrt(b) = sqrt(9 + sqrt(56)) was a solution? They'd be caught between the...

Thanks for your reply. However, I've never heard of the convention that variables at the beginning of the alphabet (a, b, etc.) are implicitly regarded as integers -- assuming that's the rule being used. (This makes maths sound like that ancient version of Fortran -- Fortran77 ? -- which...

I was just doing a Year 11 AP1 Maths Extension Exam for 2013 (here), when I came across Q1 c). This question asks you to "evaluate a and b" by "squaring both sides of:" sqrt(a) + sqrt(b) = sqrt(9 + sqrt(56)) There's no problem with this question, provided a and b are integers...