The reason that you need to use subtraction to solve this problem is because the word problem says ”how many more”. I’ve learned in school that this is a sign that you have to find the difference to the terms being used in the problem, in this case, 26,481 and 10,393. To find the difference is to subtract the smaller number from the larger number, showing that you have to do 26,481-10,393 to get the answer.
