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You can put this solution on YOUR website!
Given:
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\n" ); document.write( "b-4-(5+3d)+2b-(5d-)
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\n" ); document.write( "I think you might have left out a term in the second set of parentheses where you have a minus sign with nothing following it. I'll just substitute a question mark for that term. So your problem apparently is that you need to simplify the following:
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\n" ); document.write( "b-4-(5+3d)+2b-(5d-?)
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\n" ); document.write( "Whenever you have a set of parentheses preceded by a minus sign, you can remove the parentheses, but you have to change the signs of the terms inside them. (If they were preceded by a plus sign you could just remove them without changing the terms at all.) Notice that both sets of parentheses in this problem have a minus sign in front of them. So you need to change the signs of the terms inside of each set. When you do that you have:
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\n" ); document.write( "b - 4 - 5 - 3d + 2b - 5d + ?
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\n" ); document.write( "Now look for terms that you can combine. How about the leading b and the fifth term of +2b. They combine to equal 3b. And how about the -4 and -5. They combine to -9. And how about the -3d and -5d. They combine to -8d. When you substitute those into the expression you end up with:
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\n" ); document.write( "3b - 8d - 9 +?
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\n" ); document.write( "You'll have to add the term for the ? as appropriate and check to see if it can be combined with any of the terms in the above expression that we ended up with. Remember that it had a minus sign in the original problem, but it now has a plus sign.
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\n" ); document.write( "I hope this helps you understand these types of problems a little better.
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