How do you combine like terms in #(- 10x ^ { 2} + 8x + 3) + ( 6x ^ { 2} - 7x - 4)#?

2 Answers
smendyka
May 10, 2017

See a solution process below:

Explanation:

First, remove all of the terms from parenthesis. Be careful to handle the signs of each individual term correctly:

#-10x^2 + 8x + 3 + 6x^2 - 7x - 4#

Next, group like terms:

#-10x^2 + 6x^2 + 8x - 7x + 3 - 4#

Now, combine like terms:

#(-10 + 6)x^2 + (8 - 7)x + (3 - 4)#

#-4x^2 + 1x + (-1)#

#-4x^2 + x - 1#

Y
May 10, 2017

Reorder the expression so that terms with #x# of the same degree are next to each other and add/subtract terms with the same degree.

Explanation:

Formatted question: #(-10x^2+8x+3)+(6x^2-7x-4)#

We can only combine terms which have the same variable to the same degree, so we can first reorder the expression so that terms with #x# of the same degree are next to each other:
#(-10x^2+8x+3)+(6x^2-7x-4)#
#=-10x^2+6x^2+8x-7x+3-4#

Now, we simply do the adding/subtracting of the coefficients of the terms with the same degree of x:
#=-4x^2+x-1#

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