Question

Gustavo applied the distributive property to 9(w-5). After the commutative property, what was his expression?

a. 9w - 45
b. 45 - 9w
c. 9w + 45
d. 45 + 9w

Answer 1

After applying the distributive property to 9(w-5), Gustavo would get 9w - 45. The commutative property does not change the expression because it does not apply directly to subtraction.

Step-by-step explanation:

The student applied the distributive property to the algebraic expression 9(w-5). To distribute the 9, you multiply it by each term inside the parentheses. The distributive property would give us 9w - 45. Then applying the commutative property of addition allows us to switch the order of the terms in the expression. However, the commutative property does not apply to subtraction directly. So if you apply the commutative property to the expression resulting from the distributive property, it would still remain 9w - 45 because subtraction is not commutative. The commutative property allows the terms to be reordered when they are being added, not subtracted.