The question is asking the following: "The area of a square game board is 144 sq. in. What is the length of one of the sides of the board? An area is a product of the lenght of the sides, and here the sides are of equal lenghts. So the question can be rehrased as "what is the square root of 122" and the answer is a) 12 in. each of the sides is 12 inches long