Remember that only like terms can be combined. An expression in simplest form has no like terms and parentheses.
11x+2
Practice makes perfect
An expression in simplest form has no like terms and parentheses. Let's first rewrite this expression as a sum to identify all like terms.
11x + 9 - 7
⇓
11x + 9 + ( - 7)
Remember that like terms — constant terms or terms with the same variable and the same exponent — can be combined. In this case, we have one x-term and two constants. We will combine like terms to simplify the expression.
