To answer this question, we need to remember what the distributive property is. The distributive property states that:
That is, we will multiply a times b, and a times c. Then, we need to add the result of both operations.
[Notice that the multiplication symbol is not written in Algebra.]
We can solve the exercise following the rule we have just learned:
Therefore, the corresponding expression, without parentheses is 42 + 7a.
In summary, we can say that, after applying the distributive property, we can write an expression without parentheses (this is alsthe expanded form of the original expression):
[We still write, a, because we do not know what the value of, a, is.]