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put this solution on YOUR website!We're told that the absolute value of something is equal to 5. That means that the 'something' can either be '5' or '-5'. Therefore, there are two equations to solve:

and

.
To solve the first equation, add 1 to both sides:

, which simplifies to

. Now divide both sides by 2:

, which simplifies to

. Solving the second equation using the same process producess

. So,

could be either

or

.