Question

Tommy has "n" friends and he wants to give each friend 5 pencils. Write an expression to show how many pencils pencils Tommy will share.

Answer 1

5n

Explanation:

Think about it:

If Tommy has 4 friends (n = 4), then he will have to give 5 pencils to each person. The total number of pencils is 5 * n or 5 * 4 = 20.

Similarly, if Tommy has 0 friends (I can relate), then he will have to give 5 pencils to each of his imaginary friends. The total number of pencils he has to give out to his real friends is 5 * n or 5 * 0 = 0.