Question

Piper claims that 3(2a + 2) is equivalent to 5a + 6. She checks her claim by substituting -3 for a. Is Piper's claim correct? Why or Why not?

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Answer 1

Piper's claim that 3(2a+2) is equal to 5a +6 is incorrect.

Explanation:

The first step is to use the distributive property to distribute the 3 to BOTH the 2a and 2. The resulting expression is 6a+6 NOT 5a+6. Piper's mistake was most probably that she added 3 and 2 to get 5 instead of multiplying them together to get 6.