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How Do You Distribute With Whole Numbers and Fractions?

Simplify Using the Distributive Property

Summary

  1. '10' needs to be multiplied by each term in the parentheses
  2. '10/1' is the same as '10', but makes multiplying by a fraction much easier
  3. Replace the '10' in our second term with '2•5'
  4. Since there is now a '5' in both the numerator and denominator, we can cross them out because '5/5' equals '1'
  5. So our original expression simplifies to '15+6x'

Notes

    1. Since we have a number being multiplied by terms inside a set of parentheses, we need to use the distributive property
    1. '10' needs to be multiplied by each term in the parentheses
    1. '10' needs to be multiplied by each term in the parentheses
    1. The terms are '3/2' and '3x/5'
    1. At this point, we have '10•(3/2)' and '10•(3x/5)'
    1. '10' is the whole number and the terms '3/2' and '3x/5' are the fractions
    1. At this point, we have '10•(3/2)' and '10•(3x/5)'
    2. '10' is the whole number and the terms '3/2' and '3x/5' are the fractions
    1. The first term is '10•(3/2)'
    1. The first term is '10•(3/2)'
    2. '10' is the whole number and '3/2' is the fraction
    3. '10/1' is the same as '10', but makes multiplying by a fraction much easier
    4. Simply multiply the numerators and multiply the denominators!
    5. 10•3=30
    6. 2•1=2
    7. 30/2=15
    1. The second term is '10•(3x/5)'
    1. The second term is '10•(3x/5)'
    2. The first term was '10•(3/2)'
    1. The second term is '10•(3x/5)'
    1. The second term is '10•(3x/5)'
    1. The second term is '10•(3x/5)'
    2. 2•5=10
    1. The second term is '10•(3x/5)'
    2. 2•5=10
    3. Replace the '10' in our second term with '2•5'
    1. The second term is '10•(3x/5)'
    2. Up to this point, our second term looked like: '2•5•(3x/5)'
    3. Since there is now a '5' in both the numerator and denominator, we can cross them out
    1. Since there is now a '5' in both the numerator and denominator, we can cross them out because '5/5' equals '1'
    1. Each '5' gets dropped, so '2•5•(3x/5)' becomes '2•3x'
    1. Remember, we came up with an answer of '15' for our first term
    2. And we just found that our second term can be simplified to '6x'
    3. So our original expression simplifies to '15+6x'