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Can someone explain how to solve this step-by-step?

Can someone explain how to solve this step-by-step?-example-1
User Laaptu
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1 Answer

7 votes

Answer:

4x² - 6x

Explanation:

First, you need to understand how a negative sign to the left of parentheses works.

Look at this example:

10 - 7 = 3

This is very simple. I'm sure you know that 10 - 7 = 3.

7 can be written as 5 + 2, so subtracting 7 from 10 is the same as subtracting 5 + 2 from 10.

Let's write that:

10 - (5 + 2)

Use the rules of the order of operations and add 5 + 2 in the parentheses first. Then do the subtraction.

10 - (5 + 2) = 10 - 7 = 3

We get 3 as we expected.

Now, instead of using the correct order of operations, we will use the distributive property and distribute the negative sign to the left of the (5 + 2).

10 - (5 + 2) = 10 - 5 - 2 = 5 - 2 = 3

Once again, we get 3.

The important thing is to realize that when you subtract a quantity inside parentheses, the negative sign to the left of the parentheses changes every sign inside the parentheses.

10 - (5 + 2) has a positive 5 and a positive 2 inside the parentheses.

When you distribute the negative sign, you now have

10 - 5 - 2

Now both the 5 and the 2 have negative signs.

Also, keep in mind that we can only combine like terms. Like terms are terms with exactly the same variable part.

Now let's do your problem.

(3x² + 2y² - 3x) + (2x² + y² - 2x) - (x² + 3y² + x) =

The parentheses around the first two expressions are unnecessary since they are being added. Just drop the first two sets of parentheses.

= 3x² + 2y² - 3x + 2x² + y² - 2x - (x² + 3y² + x)

Now we have to deal with a negative sign to the left of a set of parentheses. This is what we discussed above. To get rid of the last set of parentheses, we change every sign inside the parentheses.

= 3x² + 2y² - 3x + 2x² + y² - 2x - x² - 3y² - x

Now let's bring each set of like terms together before combining like terms.

= - 3x - 2x - x

= 3x² + 2x² - x² + 2y² + y² - 3y² - 3x - 2x - x

= 4x² - 6x

User MiMFa
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