Question

A. Solve the equation 2x - 1 = 7 by undoing subtraction first.

B. Solve the equation in part (a) by undoing multiplication first. Do you get the same answer you got in part (a)?
C. Which method from parts (a) and (b) do you prefer? Explain.

Answer 1

To solve the equation 2x - 1 = 7, you can undo the subtraction by adding 1 to both sides, then divide by 2. The answer is x = 4. Both methods give the same result, but undoing subtraction first is simpler.

Step-by-step explanation:

To solve the equation 2x - 1 = 7 by undoing subtraction first, we need to isolate the variable x. To do this, we can undo the subtraction of 1 by adding 1 to both sides of the equation:

2x - 1 + 1 = 7 + 1

2x = 8

Next, to solve the equation by undoing multiplication first, we need to undo the multiplication of 2. We can do this by dividing both sides of the equation by 2:

(2x)/2 = 8/2

x = 4

Yes, we get the same answer in part (b) as we got in part (a), which is x = 4.

I prefer the method from part (a), solving the equation by undoing subtraction first, because it involves fewer steps and is generally simpler.