Hi Katelyn,
The first step would be to place all variables on one side. When solving for a variable and it is possible to place all expressions that have the variable on one side, do it! We have -3a on the left side and 6a on one side, so ask yourself, how can you have all the a's on one side? The easiest way to do it here would be to add 3a to both sides. Let's do that:
-3a + 5 = 6a - 2
-3a + 5 + 3a = 6a - 2 + 3a
5 = 9a - 2 (we add all the a's together and they disappear on the left side since they add up to 0a)
Ok, great, all the a's ore on one side of the equation, now let's try to put all the other terms that don't have an a on the left. The 5 is already there, but we have a -2 on the right side of the equation. So let's add 2 to both sides to end up with only terms that have a variable on the right side.
5 = 9a - 2
5 + 2 = 9a - 2 + 2
7 = 9a (once we add up the numbers)
Now that we have a single term with the variable a on the right side we can divide by 9 to get the variable by itself:
7 = 9a
7 / 9 = 9a / 9
7 / 9 = a (once we cancel the 9's)
a = 7 / 9 (we can flip the equation around, that's always allowed)
So a = 7/9
