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The solution given in the website:

The Solution Given in the website

Here's my solution:

My solution

What am I doing wrong?

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1 Answer

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Your method is correct, but you aren't quite finished. If you attempted to plug $-5$ back into the original equation, you would have:

$(-5)^{\frac{1}{2}}+3(-5)^{-\frac{1}{2}}=10(-5)^{-\frac{3}{2}}$

But those exponents involving halves are really square roots, and is $-5$ in the domain of the square root function? No. Thus that solution is extraneous.

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