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Year 7 · Patterns & Algebra

Collect like terms

Like terms have the same letter part. Only like terms can be added or subtracted.

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How to do it

  1. Collect the terms with the same letter.
  2. Add or subtract their number parts.
  3. Collect the plain numbers separately.

Worked example

3x + 4 + 2x − 1
x terms: 3x + 2x = 5x. Numbers: 4 − 1 = 3
5x + 3

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Watch out
x and x² are not like terms.

Practise Collect like terms properly

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