16 is 4 times the difference of a number and 10

Answer 1

Answers are 6 and 14

Definitions:

"is" means "=" equals

"times" means "x" multiply

"difference" means "-" subtract

absolute value denoted by | | is distance from zero.

Solving by this method:

You don't know if the number you are solving for is bigger or smaller than 10, You only know that 4 times that difference is 16. So, that implies using absolute value..

So,

16 = 4 * |10-x|

Do reverse order of operations to isolate |10-x| by first dividing both sides by 4:to get:

16/4 = |10-x|

4 = |10-x|

Remove absolute value bars by writing equation two ways, one as is and other as if 4 were mutliplied by -1 to get:

4 = 10 - x which means x = 6

and also -4 = 10 - x which means x = 14

Testing your answers:

Is this correct? 16 is 4 times the difference of ( ) and 10. Yes, 10 is 4 away from 6 and also 4 away from -14. And the difference of 4 multiplied by 4 is 16.

Correct!