CPhill

You are correct, EP !!!!

Ok....let's pick some points  and put them into the function to get y.....

To save time.... i'm going to pick some points for x  and have WolframAlpha  generate the associated y values

You can plot these for yourself to get a rough idea of the graph 

sqrt(x + 1) - 2 where

x = {-1, -0.5, 0, 0.5, 1, 1.5, 2, 2.5, 3}

y  =  {-2, -1.29289, -1, -0.775255, sqrt(2) - 2, -0.418861, sqrt(3) - 2, -0.129171, 0}

This is the square root graph   shifted to the  left by 1 unit and down 2 units

See  both here : 

https://www.desmos.com/calculator/c2df9wir6j

We have the opp and hyp known   .....so....use the sin inverse 

asin ( 66/ 79 )   =  x  ≈  56.66°

We  can use the tangent to sollve this

tan (62)  =  x  / 40      multiply both sides by 40

40 tan (62)  =  x  ≈  75.23   yd

We can use the Pythagorean Theorem to answer this

The hypotenuse  =  84     and one of the legs  = 50

So....the distance from the base of the ramp to the base of the wall is

√ [  84^2  -  50^2  ]   =  √ 4556  in   ≈    67.5  in 

Note that  we can express this as

⁵√ [ (-3) (-3) (-3) (-3) (-3) ]   =   

- 3

Glad you found the problem, Melody....!!!

2) Alex thinks 131 degrees are neat. What is the maximum number of interior angles of a convex n-gon that can have measure 131 degrees?

I'm less sure about this one....but.....based on this figure.....I  get  a   max of 6 angles that measure 131°