Question

SIMPLIFYING EXPRESSIONS Simplify the expression by combining like terms. $$ 107 a-208 a $$

Short answer

\(-101a\)

Step-by-step solution

Identify like terms

The given expression is basically a subtraction problem: \(107a - 208a\). This is the same as having two groups with 'a' apples, the first one has 107 apples, the second one has 208 apples. In the end you need to calculate how many apples we will have in total. Here, the like terms to be combined are \(107a\) and \(-208a\)

Combine like terms

Combining the like terms means we subtract the coefficients 107 and 208. Therefore: \(107 - 208 = -101\)

Write the simplified expression

Finally, we put this result in front of our variable, we get \(-101a\) which is the simplified form of the given expression.