In a talent competition, half of the contestants are eliminated in each round. at the end of the nth round, 32 contestants remain. if there were 1,024 contestants at the start of the competition, what is the value of n?

 Here, first tern is 1024, common ratio = 1/2 and last term = 32

32 = 1024((1/2)^n
(1/2)^n = 32/1024 = 1/32
(1/2)^n = (1/2)^5

Therefore, n = 5

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.

The total would be 40.53