We want to calculate the football team's total gain or loss after four plays. We will add the gains and loses from each play. Let's start by writing an addition expression with four addends!
?+?+?+?
We know that the team gains 2 yards in the first play. This means that the first addend in our expression is 2.
2+?+?+?We also know that the team loses 5 yards on the second play and another 3 yards on the third play. This means that the second addend is - 5 and the third is - 3.
2+( - 5)+( - 3)+?
Finally, the team gains 4 yards on the fourth and final play. Let's use this information to complete our expression.
2+( - 5)+( - 3)+ 4
Next, we will use the Associative Property of Addition to group the integers with the same sign.
2+( - 5)+( - 3)+ 4
⇕
[ - 5+( - 3)]+[ 2+ 4]
Recall that the sum of two integers with the same sign will have their common sign. Let's begin by calculating the sum of negative addends.
Looking at the expression, we can see that our addends have different signs. This means that the sum will have the sign of the integer with the greater absolute value. Let's calculate the absolute value of both addends!
| - 8|=8 and |6|=6
The absolute value of - 8 is greater than the absolute value of 6, so our sum will be a negative number. Finally, let's evaluate our expression.
- 8+6=- 2
The team loses 2 yards in total over the four plays. This result corresponds to answer C.
