Question

Use the distributive property to simplify the expression below:
-2x-12/-2

Answer 1

The distributive property says that if we have an abstract equation such as (a^2+ab), we can remove the a's out, where a is any variable or number.
So we could rewrite this as: a(a+b).

For your equation, we have:
(-2x - 12)/-2

2 is a factor of all involved numbers.
So we have:
[-2(x+6)]/-2
Now we can simply eliminate the -2 above and below and are left with:
x+6

We can double check our work by taking
-2(x+6)/-2 and multiplying the -2 through.

(-2x+(-12))/-2 = (-2x - 12)/-2

Hope this helps.
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Answer 2

\[\frac{-2x-12}{-2}\]


\[-\frac{1}{2}(-2x-12)\]


\[-\frac{1}{2}(-2x)-\frac{1}{2}(-12)\]


\[\frac{-(-2x)}{2}+\frac{-(-12)}{2}\]


\[\frac{2x}{2}+\frac{12}{2}\]


\[x+6\]
So \[\frac{-2x-12}{-2}=x+6\]