A building has 23 floors of offices above ground and 5 floors below ground. Nathan parks on the 2nd floor below ground and has an office on the 18th floor. The ground floor is floor zero. Which absolute value expression represents how many floors he must go up to get from his car to his office?
A.
|−5|+|23|
B.
|−2|+|18|
C.
|−5|+|18|
D.
|−2|+|23|
1 answer
The distance between the floor of his car and the floor of his office is the absolute value of the difference between their floor numbers: |−2−18|=|-20|=20. Therefore, he must go up 20 floors. The only expression that gives us 20 when we follow the order of operations is option D: |−2|+|23|. Therefore, the answer is D.
2 answers