How do you subtract #(-5m^2-m)-(3m^2+4m-5)#?

1 Answer
Dec 10, 2014

When dealing with expressions like this, you must always concert yourself with like terms. The expression can be rewritten as

#-5m^2 -m -3m^2 -4m +5#

Now, you can only add or substract terms that have #m^2# with terms that have #m^2#; likewise, terms that have #m# can only be added to or substarcted from terms that have #m#. So, we would get

#-5m^2 - 3m^2 -m - 4m +5 = -8m^2 - 5m +5#