Question

How do you simplify `4x – 2(x + 4)`?

Answer 1

`2x-8`

Explanation:

Our first objective should be to distribute the `2` to the terms inside the parenthesis. This is just multiplying the `2` by the terms in the parenthesis. We get:

`4x-2x-8`

We now combine like terms to get:

`2x-8`

Whenever we have problems like these, we distribute first and then combine our like terms.