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Conţinutul principal

# Combining like terms challenge problem

## Transcript video

Now we have a very, very, very hairy expression. And once again, I'm going to see if you can simplify this. And I'll give you little time to do it. So this one is even crazier than the last few we've looked at. We've got y's and xy's, and x squared and x's, well more just xy's and y squared and on and on and on. And there will be a temptation, because you see a y here and a y here to say, oh, maybe I can add this negative 3y plus this 4xy somehow since I see a y and a y. But the important thing to realize here is that a y is different than an xy. Think about it they were numbers. If y was 3 and an x was a 2, then a y would be a 3 while an xy would have been a 6. And a y is very different than a y squared. Once again, if the why it took on the value 3, then the y squared would be the value 9. So even though you see the same letter here, they aren't the same-- I guess you cannot add these two or subtract these two terms. A y is different than a y squared, is different than an xy. Now with that said, let's see if there is anything that we can simplify. So first, let's think about the y terms. So you have a negative 3y there. Do we have any more y term? Yes, we do. We have this 2y right over there. So I'll just write it out-- I'll just reorder it. So we have negative 3y plus 2y. Now, let's think about-- and I'm just going in an arbitrary order, but since our next term is an xy term-- let's think about all of the xy terms. So we have plus 4xy right over here. So let me just write it down-- I'm just reordering the whole expression-- plus 4xy. And then I have minus 4xy right over here. Then let's go to the x squared terms. I have negative 2 times x squared, or minus 2x squared. So let's look at this. So I have minus 2x squared. Do I have any other x squared? Yes, I do. I have this 3x squared right over there. So plus 3x squared. And then let's see, I have an x term right over here, and that actually looks like the only x term. So that's plus 2x. And then I only have one y squared term-- I'll circle that in orange-- so plus y squared. So all I have done is I've reordered the statement and I've color coded it based on the type of term we have. And now it should be a little bit simpler. So let's try it out. If I have negative 3 of something plus 2 of that something, what do I have? Or another way to say it, if I have two of something and I subtract 3 of that, what am I left with? Well, I'm left with negative 1 of that something. So I could write negative 1y, or I could just write negative y. And another way you could think about it, but I like to think about it intuitively more, is what's the coefficient here? It is negative 3. What's the coefficient here? It's 2. Where obviously both are dealing-- they're both y terms, not xy terms, not y squared terms, just y. And so negative 3 plus 2 is negative 1, or negative 1y is the same thing as negative y. So those simplify to this right over here. Now let's look at the xy terms. If I have 4 of this, 4 xy's and I were to take away 4 xy's, how many xy's am I left with? Well, I'm left with no xy's. Or you could say add the coefficients, 4 plus negative 4, gives you 0 xy's. Either way, these two cancel out. If I have 4 of something and I take away those 4 of that something, I'm left with none of them. And so I'm left with no xy's. And then I have right over here-- I could have written 0xy, but that seems unnecessary-- then right over here I have my x squared terms. Negative 2 plus 3 is 1. Or another way of saying it, if I have 3x squared and I were to take away 2 of those x squared, so I'm left with the 1x squared. So this right over here simplifies to 1x squared. Or I could literally just write x squared. 1x squared is the same thing as x squared. So plus x squared, and then these there's nothing really left to simplify. So plus 2x plus y squared. And we're done. And obviously you might have gotten an answer in some other order, but the order in which I write these terms don't matter. It just matters that you were able to simplify it to these four terms.