When do you use the Distributive Property?

1 Answer
Nov 14, 2014

The Distributive Property can help make numbers easier to solve because you are "breaking the numbers into parts".

In Algebra, you can use the Distributive Property if you want to remove parentheses in a problem.

For example: 3(2+5)
You can probably already solve this in your head but you also get the same answer by using the Distributive Property.

What you are essentially doing when you distribute is multiplying the number outside the parentheses by each of the numbers inside the parenthesis. So you would do:

3#xx#2= 6 and 3#xx#5=1 5, now to find the answer just add these numbers up, you will get 21.