Question

Simplify 3a + 2b - 8a + b

Answer 1

To simplify 3a + 2b - 8a + b, we need to combine like terms. Like terms are terms that share common variables. In this expression, the two variables are terms with a and terms with b. The terms that have a are 3a and -8a. The terms that have b are 2b and b. Now we can separate them and simplify.

(3a - 8a) + (2b + b)

-5a + 3b

Answer 2

To simplify this expression, we must combine like terms. This means that we have to add or subtract the coefficients of the same variables, meaning we can only add variable a's together and variable b's together, they must stay separate.

3a + 2b - 8a + b

The first thing that we should do is to rearrange this expression so that the terms with the same variables are next to one another.

3a - 8a + 2b + b

Next, we can combine these terms by adding/subtracting their coefficients.

-5a + 3b

We can also write this as:

3b - 5a

Therefore, your answer is 3b - 5a.

Hope this helps!