Algebraic Expression

Question

What four less than three times a number?

Answer 1

Four less than three times a number. Lets answer this by going backwards:

Three times a number; well I don't know what the number is so I'll just write something down, like a blank space, but I don't like blank spaces and I do like letters, especially the letter "x".

So three times a number is: 3 multiplied by x, which we can write as ( 3x )

So now that we have the "three times a number", we need to show we are taking 4 less than that. So lets write:

3x - 4

Now we have 3 times a number (which we just wrote as "x") minus 4, which is another way of saying "four less than three times a number"