I'm not entirely sure I understand what your asking, but let me take a knock at it. The distributive property is a multiplication property more or less set up like: X(Y+Z) = XY+XZ. So if the problem gives you XY and XZ, you need to find the greatest common factor, which would be X, divide both numbers by this and you'll be left with Y and Z, which you plug into the original equation. So: 24 = 5x4, and 36 = 6x6. So X = 6, Y=4, and Z =6 as well. Therefore X(Y+Z) = 6(5+6).