ShmoopTube

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Time for your daily dose of Shmoop. This won't hurt a bit.

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Solve for x: the absolute value of x plus 1 all over 2... is less than 3.

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And here are the potential answers...

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It's yet another absolutely fabulous... absolute value question.

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Let's start by ignoring the absolute value lines and solve as if they were all positive numbers.

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We multiply both sides by 2 to get x plus 1 is less than 6.

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Subtract 1 from both sides and we have x is less than 5, so our potential answers are

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only B and C.

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Now let's figure out what this problem would be if x were the most negative it could be.

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What would make things under the absolute value lines to equal NEGATIVE 3?

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We'd have x plus 1 over 2 is less than negative 3, but with no absolute value lines now.

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We multiply both sides by 2 and we have x plus 1 is less than negative 6.

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Then subtract 1 from both sides and we have x is less than negative 7.

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So we have a positive 5 and a negative 7 as the range here.

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Which is... this range... and our answer is C.

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