Online math quiz - I have questions about 1 of them

An interesting question because it’s equating units and square units. At least they had the courtesy / good sense to include the word “value” so we know they’re just talking about the numeric result, not the physical / mathematical reality of what the results mean.

See this thread for a mild religious war about math problems of this nature:

As to this problem specifically, as @slalexan says, it’s trivial and needs no multiple choice.

Mechanically converting the words of the problem into an equation yields:

4S = S^2. Solve for S.

By inspection S=4.

And of course zero is a degenerate answer as well. Also by inspection. Any equation involving just multiplication and exponentiation is trivially solved at zero.

I love it.