What are the rules for solving equations and combining terms?

Question

what are the rules for combining terms and solving equations. Its in the same problem and I am confused because sometimes you have to do this and sometimes you have to do that. Something with a little more details would help?

Answer 1

First, you need to PEMDAS (order of operations).  You will have equations that have more than one distinct operator.  In order to simplify the equation, you will have to perform the inverse of the operator on both sides of the equation each time to isolate the term you are solving for.

 

Then, you need to know how to combine like terms.  These like terms have the same variable including same degree of that variable.  For example,  5x² and -34x² are like terms.   You will just add their coefficients and keep the variable.

 

You may also need to perform distributive property to remove parentheses from the equation.