How do you translate "3 times the difference of a number and one" into a mathematical expression?

Question

12904 views around the world

You can reuse this answer
Creative Commons License

Answer 1 · 2015-12-11T05:15:28

#3(x-1)#

Since the expression is a DIFFERENCE, subtraction will be involved.

As an example, the difference of #7# and #5# would be written as #7-5#.

Therefore, the difference of a number and one can be represented by the expression #x-1#, where #x# can be equal to any number.

If we want to find #3# times that difference, we multiply #3# by what we already have:

#3(x-1)#

Note that this is also equal to #3x-3# if we distribute the #3#.

Answer 2 · 2015-12-11T12:59:33

Depending on the context you could also have: #3(1-x)#