Question

Jenna’s method: Mia’s method:

5(30 + 4) 5(30 + 4)
(5)(30) + (5)(4) 5(34) = 170
150 + 20 = 170


Explain why both Jenna and Mia arrived at the same answer and the advantage of one method over the other.

Answer 1

They both used distributive property.

Answer 2

Jenna and Mia both used the distributive property to solve the problem, and the advantage of using Mia's method was that she added whats was I the parentheses, which narrowed down the math, but was still longer than Jenna's, as Jenna just multiplied both parts then added, making it shorter, and easier.

Explanation: