Question

Can you combine the terms after you distribute?

Answer 1

Of course! As long as they’re like terms. You can’t combine x^2 and x.

Answer 2

maybe

Explanation:

You can always combine like terms, before or after any application of the distributive property.

x(3 +4) = 3x +4x = 7x . . . . . terms combined after distributing x

(x +1)(x +2) = x^2 +1x +2x +1 = x^2 +3x +1 . . . . . terms combined after using the distributive property

x(3 +4x) = 3x +4x^2 . . . . . . terms cannot be combined (unlike terms)