Think of it this way...
You could use the pithagoras theorem to get the distance to the origin, but since you're working on one single axis, the distance is just
[tex] \sqrt{ {x}^{2} } = |x| [/tex]
You're told the distance is greater than 2
[tex] |x| > 2[/tex]
So, you're getting every value for
[tex] x > 2 \\ x < - 2[/tex]
