The original expression here might be (4x3) + (4x3). This is because the
distributive property simply moves around numbers, but will not change
the value of the equation, as in the question we are looking at here.
The distributive property states that we multiply everything inside parentheses with the term outside parentheses. Algebraically, it is a(b+c) = ab+ac.
This means we need to split 8 up into a sum. Using 4+4, we have 3(8) = 3(4+4) = 3(4) + 3(4)
