All Algebra II Resources
Example Questions
Example Question #1 : Understanding The Discriminant
Given , what is the value of the discriminant?
In general, the discriminant is .
In this particual case .
Plug in these three values and simplify:
Example Question #1 : Discriminants
The equation
has two imaginary solutions.
For what positive integer values of is this possible?
All positive integers
For the equation
to have two imaginary solutions, its discriminant must be negative. Set and solve for in the inequality
Therefore, if is a positive integer, it must be in the set .
Example Question #3 : Discriminants
The equation
has two real solutions.
For what positive integer values of is this possible?
All positive integers
For the equation
to have two real solutions, its discriminant must be positive. Set and solve for in the inequality
Therefore, if is a positive integer, it must be in the set
Example Question #3 : Discriminants
What is the discriminant of the following quadratic equation? Are its roots real?
The equation's discriminant is and its roots are not real.
The equation's discriminant is and its roots are real.
The equation's roots are not real; therefore, it does not have a discriminant.
The equation's discriminant is and the its roots are not real.
The equation's discriminant is and its roots are real.
The equation's discriminant is and the its roots are not real.
The "discriminant" is the name given to the expression that appears under the square root (radical) sign in the quadratic formula, where , , and are the numbers in the general form of a quadratic trinomial: . If the discriminant is positive, the equation has real roots, and if it is negative, we have imaginary roots. In this case, , , and , so the discriminant is , and because it is negative, this equation's roots are not real.
Example Question #2 : Discriminants
Find the discriminant, , in the following quadratic expression:
Remember the quadratic formula:
.
The discriminant in the quadratic formula is the term that appears under the square root symbol. It tells us about the nature of the roots.
So, to find the discriminant, all we need to do is compute for our equation, where .
We get .
Example Question #1 : Discriminants
Choose the answer that is the most correct out of the following options.
How many solutions does the function have?
1 real solution; 1 imaginary solution
2 real solutions
2 imaginary solutions
No solution
1 real solution
2 real solutions
The number of roots can be found by looking at the discriminant. The discriminant is determined by . For this function, ,, and . Therfore, . When the discriminant is positive, there are two real solutions to the function.
Example Question #6 : Discriminants
Determine the discriminant of the following quadratic equation .
The discriminant is found using the equation . So for the function , ,, and . Therefore the equation becomes .
Example Question #2 : Discriminants
What is the discriminant for the function ?
Given that quadratics can be written as . The discriminant can be found by looking at or the value under the radical of the quadratic formula. Using substiution and order of operations we can find this value of the discriminant of this quadratic equation.
Example Question #2 : Discriminants
How many solutions does the quadratic have?
real solution and immaginary solution
immaginary solutions
no solutions
real solution
real solutions
real solutions
The discrimiant will determine how many solutions a quadratic has. If the discriminant is positive, then there are two real solutions. If it is negative then there are two immaginary solutions. If it is equal to zero then there is one repeated solution.
Given that quadratics can be written as . The discriminant can be found by looking at or the value under the radical of the quadratic formula. Using substiution and order of operations we can find this value of the discriminant of this quadratic equation.
The discriminant is positive; therefore, there are two real solutions to this quadratic.
Example Question #9 : Discriminants
How many real roots are there to the following equation:
None of the above
This is using the discriminant to find roots. The discriminant as you recall is
If you get a negative number you have no real roots, if you get zero you have one, and if you get a positive number you have two real roots.
So plug in your numbers:
Because you get a negative number you have zero real roots.