Question

Can someone find out what the x means in the following equation and show the steps please:

5(x-1)-3(x+4)=-11

Answer 1

First you distribute the numbers outside of the parenthesis to get:
5x-5-3x-12=-11

Then you combine like terms to simplify to this:
2x-17=-11

Next, to isolate the variable by itself you add 17 to both sides:
2x=6

Then you divide the two out to find x:
X=3