Question

Explain how to use the combine place values strangest to find 223 - 119

Answer 1

So, the subtraction looks like this:

223
-119
_______

The reason why combining place values here is necessary is that 3 is less than 9 (so I can't just substract in the one's place without going to negative numbers)

so we combine the ones and tens places and substract the whole: 23-19 is four!
223
-119
_______
04

and then we continue
223
-119
_______
204

and that's the result!