How do you simplify -5(8 - 12) ?

1 Answer
May 8, 2018

20

Explanation:

Step one would be to distribute -5 to 8 and -12.

-5(8) = -40
-5(-12) = 60

This makes your expression looks like this:

-40 + 60

You can simplify this pretty easily, as -40 + 60 is the same thing as 60-40, which is 20.

Another, possibly easier, way to do it would be to use the order of operations and do the expression inside the parentheses first,

8-12=-4

which would make it look like this...

-5(-4)

...and then multiply to get 20.