A building has 15 floors of offices above ground and 3 floors below ground. Lucy parks on the 3rd floor below ground and has an office on the 10th floor. The ground floor is floor zero. How many floors must she go up from her car to her office?
Lucy's starting point is 3 floors below ground, which is the equivalent of a negative 3 floor. Her office is on the 10th floor above ground, which is the equivalent of a positive 10 floor.
To find the number of floors she needs to go up from her car to her office, we can subtract Lucy's starting point from her office floor using an absolute value:
|10 - (-3)| = |10 + 3| = |13| = 13
Therefore, Lucy needs to go up 13 floors from her car to her office.