gmat prep 1

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by Rahul@gurome » Sat Sep 25, 2010 8:21 pm
If x < 0, lxl is -x.
Or sqrt(-xlxl) is sqrt(-x*-x) = sqrt(x^2).

In GMAT only the positive value of square root is taken.
Note that since x<0, -x is positive.
So even though both -x and x square up to give x^2, we take only the value -x as sqrt(x^2).

The correct answer is (A).
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by GMATGuruNY » Sun Sep 26, 2010 3:12 am
Let x = -2.
Then √(-x * |x|) = √[-(-2) * |-2|] = √(2*2) = √4 = 2.

Now we plug x = -2 into all the answer choices to see which gives us our target answer of 2.

Only answer choice A works:
-x = -(-2) = 2.

The correct answer is A.
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