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Circles SAT question

Math · Geometry and Trigonometry · Hard · Answer it here, explanation included.

The graph of in the xy-plane is a circle. What is the length of the circle’s radius?

Enter a number or fraction (like 3/17 or 0.176). Press Enter to check.

ExplanationShow

The correct answer is . It's given that the graph of  in the xy-plane is a circle. The equation of a circle in the xy-plane can be written in the form , where the coordinates of the center of the circle are  and the length of the radius of the circle is . The term in this equation can be obtained by adding the square of half the coefficient of to both sides of the given equation to complete the square. The coefficient of is . Half the coefficient of is . The square of half the coefficient of is . Adding to each side of yields , or . Similarly, the term can be obtained by adding the square of half the coefficient of to both sides of this equation, which yields , or . This equation is equivalent to , or . Therefore, the length of the circle's radius is .

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