Question

How do you subtract `(-5m^2-m)-(3m^2+4m-5)`?

Answer 1

When dealing with expressions like this, you must always concert yourself with like terms. The expression can be rewritten as

`-5m^2 -m -3m^2 -4m +5`

Now, you can only add or substract terms that have `m^2` with terms that have `m^2`; likewise, terms that have `m` can only be added to or substarcted from terms that have `m`. So, we would get

`-5m^2 - 3m^2 -m - 4m +5 = -8m^2 - 5m +5`