When starting a problem, almost every single problem needs to be understood by the person answering so they can see what needs to be done. In this example, we are given an expression and told to solve the equation which means that we need to solve for the unknown, in this case x.
Now that we know what we must do, we can start to solve the problem. Looking at the problem we can see that the step that we must take is to distribute 3 into the parenthesis.
Distribute
- [tex]3(2x + 2) = 3x - 15[/tex]
- [tex](3*2x) +(3* 2) = 3x - 15[/tex]
- [tex](6x) +(6) = 3x - 15[/tex]
- [tex]6x+6 = 3x - 15[/tex]
Now that we distributed the values inside of the parenthesis we can move onto the next step which is to help isolate x. What we should do is subtract 6 from both sides which will help leave x with its coefficient alone.
Subtract 6 from both sides
- [tex]6x+(6 - 6 )= 3x +(- 15 - 6)[/tex]
- [tex]6x= 3x +(- 15 - 6)[/tex]
The next step that we should take to help solve for the unknown is to subtract 3x from both sides.
Subtract 3x from both sides
- [tex](6x - 3x)= (3x - 3x) - 21[/tex]
- [tex](6x - 3x)= - 21[/tex]
The final step that we must take to help isolate the unknown would be to divide both sides by 3. This would remove the coefficient from x and we would get -21 divided by 3.
Divide both sides by 3
- [tex]\frac{3x}{3} = \frac{- 21}{3}[/tex]
- [tex]x = \frac{- 21}{3}[/tex]
Therefore, after simplifying the expression that was given to solve for the unknown we were able to determine that the option that would best match the solution is option A, x = -7.
