How do you solve x + 5 = 12?

1 Answer
Jun 7, 2018

x=7

Explanation:

The key insight here is that we want to solve for x, and in doing so, we need to undo any operation being applied to it.

Right now, only 5 is being added to it, so to solve for it, we need to do the inverse operation, subtraction.

Remember, we subtract 5 from both sides to maintain the equality. We get

color(purple)(x=7)

We can even plug in 7 for x to make sure our answer is reasonable:

color(purple)7+5=12

=>12=12

This is true, so x=7 is our solution.

Hope this helps!