I was reading some tests for students one year away from highschool (13-14 year olds), from a local mathematical company. I expected them to be a bit more difficult than that, although they have varying difficulty in the questions. Still, why would you start with something like this, which could very easily be (already as merely tedious) in a regular school test (and only requires not misreading stuff)?
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I actually checked the school book from that year (it was from 2002, despite the conspicuous 2004 in the question) and unless the pupils weren't taught what an exponent of 0 means and had to somehow infer it, this is just not a good question - the answer, if you wish to verify, is
Only positive would be avoiding the ubiquitous (large perfect square +-1)^2 and similar stuff, but not like this ^^