8P = A because there are 8x apples per x pear, so to make it equal we must multiply pears by 8. P+A = 981. replacing "A" in the second equation with "8P" to get P+8P=981=9P divide both sides by 9 to get 109 pear trees. knowing this we can get 981-109=A=872 apple trees. the problem asks for A-P which we can replace the numbers to get (872)-(109)=763 more trees
