Question

What is the 1st step to solving a multi-step equation?

Answer 1

Firstly, we would distribute the 2 and get rid of the parenthesis by using distributive property, which is:

$a(b+c)=ab+ac$

So, we have:

$\begin{gathered} 2(x+4)=6 \\ 2x+8=6 \end{gathered}$

Second step would be to subtract 8 off both sides so we have variables to one side and numbers to another, thus we have:

$\begin{gathered} 2x+8=6 \\ 2x=6-8 \\ 2x=-2 \end{gathered}$