Expressions and Variables: The Distributive Property

The distributive property (or the distributive property of multiplication over addition and subtraction) simplifies and solves expressions in the form of: or

-  The distributive property is multiplying a term outside the parentheses by the terms inside.
-  Distributive Property rule:

Examples:
Example 1.  Simply using the distributive property.
Solution: Use Distributive Property rule:


Example 2.  Simply.
Solution: Use Distributive Property rule:


Example 3.  Simply.
Solution: First, simplify using the distributive property.
Then:
Now combine like terms:
In this expression, and are “like terms” and we can combine them.
. Then: <