-t + 2 = 12, what is t?

Question

I didn’t understand what they meant, and how to solve it. Can you help?

Answer 1

The trick is to isolate t. The first step would be to subtract 2 from each side:

-t + 2 - 2 = 12 - 2

-t = 10

The next step would be to get rid of that negative sign. Remember, if there is no coefficient written in front of a variable, it is read as a 1 there. Even with a negative sign, that still applies, so it can be seen as -1t. Therefore, we can just multiply both sides of the equation by -1:

-t * -1 = 10 * -1

t = -10

Let's put the answer back into the original equation:

-(-10) + 2 = 12

A negative times a negative equals a positive:

10 + 2 = 12

12 = 12