We need 0's where the 4,8,0,-9,leftmost 3, and 7 are. To get a 0 where the 4 is: Multiply the 1st row by -2 and add it to the 2nd row, and put the result in place of row 2 That operation is abbreviated -2R1+R2->R2 To get a 0 where the 8 is: Multiply row 1 by -4 and add it to the row 3, and put the result in place of row 3 That operation is abbreviated -4R1+R3->R3 We already have a 0 at the top of column 2. To get a 0 where the -9 is: Multiply row 2 by -3 and add it to the row 3, and put the result in place of row 3 That operation is abbreviated -3R2+R3->R3 Now that we have our 0's, we get the 1's. We multiply row 1 by 1/2, and row 2 by -1/3. Those operations are abbreviated (1/2)R1->R1 and (-1/3)R2->R2 Edwin