Question

a girl scout has (5x-12) boxes of cookies and sells (3x+18) of them. Write an expression to represent the amount of boxes she has left. Also can you show me the work that gets this answer not just the answer

Answer 1

You have to subtract 3x + 18 from 5x - 12:

=> 5x - 12 - ( 3x + 18) = 5x - 12 - 3x - 18 = 5x - 3x - 12 - 18 = 2x - 30

The first step was to apply distributive property to supress the parenthesis, after that the terms were arranged and the like terms combined.

Answer: 2x - 30