Question

How do you simplify `1+ 4x - 4+ 8x`?

Answer 1

`-4x-3`

Explanation:

Since addition is commutative, I can rewrite our expression as

`color(blue)(4x-8x)+color(purple)(1-4)`

I wrote the expression in this way so that I can group like terms. We can only combine the blue terms with each other, and the purple terms with each other. We get:

`color(blue)(-4x)color(purple)(-3)`

Hope this helps!