Addition of Like Terms

Addition of Like Terms

Subtraction of Like Terms

Multiplication of Like Terms

Before you study this concept, you are advice of read: What are Like terms ? While adding two or more like terms, we only add the numeric part or constant and keep the variable part as such. To understand why only constant parts are added in like terms, lets study the following example 1: Example 1 : Add two like terms: 5a and 3a Solution = This proceeds as: 5a + 3a We know that a term is a product of its constants and variable, so we get: = (5 X a) + (3 X a) Apply Distributive Property and we get: = (5 + 3) X a Solve brackets and we get: = 8 X a Or we can write it as: = 8a Hence, you can observe that during addition of given like terms i.e. 5a & 3a, only constants i.e. 5 & 3 are added i.e. 5 + 3 (variable i.e. a is kept as such) and this gives result equals to 8a. Let's apply the same on following two examples: Example 2 : Add 10xy and 20xy Solution: This proceeds as: 10xy + 20xy Add constants and keep variable as such & we get: = (10 + 20)xy Solve brackets and we get: = 30xy Hence, 10xy + 20xy = 30xy Example 3: Add 3x2 and 2x2 Solution: This proceeds as: 3x2 + 2x2 Add constants and keep variable as such & we get: = (3 + 2)x2 Solve brackets and we get: = 5x2 Hence, 3x2 + 2x2 = 5x2