The two is a factor so you cannot take it apart from the parenthesis. That's why it helps to put brackets around the denominator to see it.
Distributive Property: it makes no difference whether you add two or more terms together first, and then multiply the results by a factor, or whether you multiply each term alone by the factor first, and then add up the results.
Adding up the term first; then multiplying by the factor = multiplying each term by the factor first, then adding up the resulting terms
Factor(Term1 + Term2 + ... + TermN) = Factor(Term1) + Factor(Term2) + ..... + Factor(TermN)
2(9+3) = 2(12) = 24
2(9+3) = 2(9) + 2(3) = 24
Answer: 48/24 = 2
If I gave you 1/(12x+24), you could factor it into 1/12(x+2). 12(x+2) is a factored form of 12x+24. You CANNOT split it up and divide by the 12 and then multiply by the x+2, or you'll get a completely wrong answer.
To be allowed to divide before distributing there have to be parentesis stating such: (48/2)*(9+3). Otherwise it's all one term that cannot be separated before performing another operation. |