Let . How many real values of satisfy ?

Answer and explanation

Correct answer: C.

  1. Step 1: gives or , so we need or .
  2. Step 2: gives or .
  3. Step 3: gives , with discriminant , so .
  4. Step 4: These four values are all different, so there are solutions.
Answer
.
Why not the others: The equations and have discriminants and and no common root, so each gives two different solutions and the total is four. Three would need a repeated or shared root, and five exceeds the degree of a quartic.

Practise more Quadratics and the discriminant.

Free questions with an explanation for every one, and full timed TMUA mock tests.