How do you simplify #-3 * -5 * 2#?

1 Answer
Apr 23, 2018

#30#

Explanation:

To solve this, you want to multiply all of the numbers together. To start, it's usually best if you begin with the first two numbers. In this case, it would be #-3# and #-5#.

When multiplying with integers, the numbers that you are multiplying can be positive or negative, and depending on this, your answer will either be positive or negative. Here's a list of the rules to follow when multiplying negative and positive integers:

  1. When there is an odd number of negative signs, then your answer will be negative.
  2. When there is a positive number of positive signs, your answer will be positive.
  3. When there is a positive number of negative signs, your answer will be positive.

Now that we know these rules, we can multiply normally. Our first components are #-3# and #-5#. We see that there are two negative signs here, so we know that our answer will be positive. Now we multiply our numbers together and get #15#.

Now that we have the answer of these two numbers, we can multiply the product times the third number, #2#. There are two positive signs, so our answer will once again be positive. #15# times #2# is #30#, so our answer is #30#.

I hope that this helped!