Question

How do you solve `-x - 5x = 24`?

Answer 1

`x = -4`

Explanation:

To solve this problem you first want to collect the like terms. You have two terms `-x` and `-5x`.

You combine these terms to form `-6x`.
Instead of thinking of the problem as subtracting `5x` from `-x` you can think of it as adding `-5x` to `-x`.

To understand this you can simply write out the `x`'s individually.

`-x -x -x -x -x -x`

You see that when you subtract a negative from a negative it is like adding the negatives together.

We then get:

`-6x = 24`

After collecting like terms you can divide `24` by `-6` to get the value of `x`.

`24/-6=-4`

`:. x = -4`

Therefore the answer is `-4`.