Big John's home is appraised at $215,000. However, he still owes $180,000. If he wanted to take out a home equity loan,
what is the maximum amount that he can borrow? (Assume
that he can borrow up to 80 percent of the market value of the
home.)

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.