How do you simplify # (6x + 19) - (14x + 5)#?

1 Answer
Mar 23, 2018

#-8x+14#

Explanation:

One thing that always tripped me up when looking at these types of expressions was the negative. We need to make sure that we distribute that negative through our second term, it doesn't mean that we just subtract the 14x.

#(6x+19)-1(14x+5)#

This gives us:

#(6x+19)-14x-5#

At this point we can drop our parenthesis as they are no longer needed. Then, we can go ahead and simply combine like terms.

#6x+19-14x-5#

Begin by rearranging the terms and then simply add or subtract the constants and the variables.

#6x+19-14x-5 -> 6x-14x+19-5 = -8x+14#