Practice Checking Solutions in Math

Use these practice problems to test your method after reviewing the concept explanation and worked examples.

Quick Recap

Checking solutions means substituting candidate values back into the original condition to verify they satisfy it.

Treat your answer as a hypothesis and test it by substituting back into the original equation to verify.

Example 1

easy
Check whether x = 5 is a solution of 2x - 3 = 7.

Example 2

medium
Solve \sqrt{x+3} = x - 3 and check for extraneous solutions.

Example 3

easy
Is x = -2 a solution of x^2 + x = 2?

Example 4

medium
Someone solved \frac{x}{x-2} = \frac{2}{x-2} and got x = 2. Is this valid?