52 decreased by twice a number in algebric expression

Answer 1

So, word problems like this can be very tricky and difficult to understand. I always suggest breaking down information in these problems piece by piece by creating two categories: Known's and Unknowns.

When organizing our problem into two categories, we are able to decipher the data in a digestible manner and then begin organizing our data accordingly.

It is my preference to always start with known values first, therefore in the case of this problem it says decreased by 52 and twice a number. A number is an unknown since we do not have the exact number so we will get to that later, but let's focus on our known values. The know value in this case is 52 so we can add that to our known category,

Now the next set of data we have is twice a number. Now by standard Math, when we create variables for unknown values, the variable usually used first is x (but you can use any variable you like). In this case I will use the standard variable x since that is universally understood by the mathematics community.

So the problem says twice a number, so we have our number x in our unknown category. However, let's not forget this, it says twice a number. The word twice is a key word. When reading this problem, it can be difficult to interpret twice, but in this case twice is referring to multiplication. Twice corresponds with the number 2 so in this problem, we want to multiply our unknown value x to twice (2) in which we derive 2x.

Now we have a known value of 52 and unknown value of 2x, so now we have our values and its time to put them together accordingly.

As we read our problem, the word "decrease" stands out. Whenever you see decrease in these type of problems, this refers to subtraction. Therefore , between our known and unknown values we are subtracting them away from each other. Now we have to find out the order in which what value is subtracting from the other.

As you read carefully it says 52 decreased by twice a number. If we follow the order of this problem it is saying to take our value of 52 and subtract by twice an unknown value. Remember twice an unknown value refers to 2x therefore our equation looks like 52 - 2x.

Therefore our algebraic expression for this problem is 52 - 2x

Answer 2

The problem is asking that you subtract twice a number from 52. In other terms, 52-nx

n = equals a number

ex. 52-2x

Answer 3

Hi Tae,

An algebric expression that represents 52 decreased by twice a number is 52-2x where x is the number. This can be determined by understanding the language used in the question. When the questions uses the word "decreased" this means that a value was subtracted by another value. The word "twice" symbolizes that a number was doubled or multiplied by 2. With this understanding, we can create the expression 52 - (symbolizing the word decreased) 2*x (symbolizing the word "twice a number").

Hope this helps!

Manu