Question

A student attempted to generate an equivalent expression using the distributive property, as shown below: 4(x + 2) = x + 8 What was the mistake made?

Answer 1

The distributive property states that a(b+c)=ab+ac.
In this situation, 4(x+2)= 4*x+ 4*2.
While the student multiplied 4*2 to get 8, the student did not multiply 4*x to get 4x.

Answer 2

4(x + 2) = 4(x) + 4(2)
= 4x + 8

mistake that a student forgot to multiply 4 on the first variable and it's supposed to be 4x + 8, not x + 8