Educator

Distributive Property

• Understand all versions of the distributive property. The basic version is: a(b + c) = ab + ac. But a can be on either the left or the right side of the parentheses. This property is used a lot in this course, so you need to understand it well.

• Use the distributive property to simplify mental calculations involving multiplication, such as: 18(999) = 18(1000 – 1) = …

• The distributive property applies to algebraic expressions as well as numbers. Use it to simplify algebraic expressions.

• A term is a product of numbers and variables. Like terms have the same variables to the same powers.