Question 1205692
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For a beginning algebra student, it can be hard to learn to interpret the given words correctly....<br>
"two more than seven times Lynn’s age"<br>
Note the "two more than ..." means you are starting with the "..." and adding 2.  So the algebraic expression is going to be of the form (...) + 2.<br>
"seven times ..." means you are multiplying "..." by 7.  "seven times Lynn's age" means you are multiplying Lynn's age by 7.<br>
So let x be Lynn's age
Then "seven times Lynn's age" is 7x
And then "two more than seven times Lynn’s age" is 7x + 2.<br>
Note that many beginning students, by looking at the words exactly as they are given without thinking of their meaning, will write the given expression as 2 + 7x.  The expressions "7x + 2" and "2 + 7x" are algebraically equivalent; however, "7x + 2" is a better representation, because -- again -- "two more than seven times Lynn’s age" means you are starting with 7 times Lynn's age and adding 2.<br>
If the same student, by reading the words directly without thinking about what they mean, interpreted "2 less than Lynn's age" as "2 - 7x", that would clearly be wrong, because the written expression means you are starting with 7 times Lynn's age and subtracting 2.  So the correct algebraic expression would be "7x - 2" instead of "2 - 7x".<br>
The student needs to learn to look at the meaning of the given expression in words to write the correct algebraic expression.<br>