Question

What are the inverse operations necessary to solve the equation three times s minus six equals twelve?

Answer 1

Here's the equation.
3s - 6 = 12

To find the inverse operations, think of it this way. If you were told to evaluate the left side for a value of s, what would you do? For example, if I told you calculate the left side for s = 5. You substitute 5 for s on the left side then calculate the value of the left side. You'd do this:

3 * 5 - 6

The order is multiplication and division before addition or subtraction, so first you multiply 3 and 5 to get 15:

15 - 6

Now you do the subtraction, 15 - 6 = 9

To evaluate the left side, you first multiplied s by 3 then you subtracted 6.

To solve the equation, you do the opposite of those two operations in the reverse order.

That means start by doing the reverse of subtract 6. That means add 6.
Then do the reverse of multiply by 3 by dividing by 3.
Remember that these inverse operations have to be done to both sides of the equation.