Question

How do you combine like terms in `(2p ^ { 2} + 5p + 11) + ( - p ^ { 2} - 9p - 4)`?

Answer 1

`p^2-4p+7`

Explanation:

In short, when we combine terms, we need to look for terms with the same degree. We can rewrite the expression as

`color(blue)(2p^2-p^2)+color(purple)(5p-9p)+color(red)(11-4)`

I didn't change the value of the expression, I just grouped the like terms. We can simplify these to get

`color(blue)(p^2)color(purple)(-4p)+color(red)(7)`

Hope this helps!