Radical Operations (Adding, Subtracting, Multiplying)

This skill drill provides practice for radical operations: adding, subtracting, and multiplying. I teach simplifying radicals using the prime factorization method, of which you can see an example on page 2 in the Copy Me solution.

Contents

• Page 1: Reference box for adding and subtracting radicals; 12 Practice Problems
  • 4 adding and subtracting radicals
  • 4 multiplying radical monomials/classify as rational or irrational
  • 4 multiplying radical binomials 
• Page 2: Copy Me! – Multiple Choice Preview and Discovery
  • Applications of multiplying radicals multiple choice question to annotate
  • Review the solution
  • Copy the solution twice
  • Write 2-4 sentences about what you notice/wonder from solution
• Page 3: Answer Key for Page 1

Designed to print one page, front-and-back. If you’re only interested in the converting between forms and simplifying radicals part, just give students the first page.

How I Use this Worksheet

I give most of my skill drills as homeworks to expose students to procedural pre-skills as preparation for objectives we’ll cover formally in the future. However, these objectives are in my standards, but do not build to other standards, so I teach them using this skill drill (homework toward the end of the year) and through daily warmups. I solve problems 1, 5, and 9 with them, one each day on the daily warmup so that they are prepared for success on these skill-based problems at home. The “Copy me!” problem on the back shows students a multiple choice application test question and solution, asking them to observe patterns in the response.

• Monday: Assignment given; teach problem 1 in warmup; recommended HW 2-4 
• Tuesday:  Teach problem 5 in warmup; recommended HW 6-8
• Wednesday:  Teach problem 9 in warmup; recommended HW 10-12
• Thursday: Recommended HW (second page)
• Friday: Assignment due