Her statement is possible, the first rectangle could be equal to the second because x is unknown so if x was 5in in the first rectangle and - 1 in the second rectangle both problems would look like this 2 in & 5 in and the second one 5in & (2 in = (-1 +3)).
j^3
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4^2 h^4
when you have negatives, you want them to be positive. To do that you need to convert it into a fraction