We want to find out how much Sarah paid for her bike. We can use a number line to visualize the given situation. From the exercise, we know that the bike cost $$ 260 .$ Sarah had a coupon that was worth $$ 55$ off the cost of any bike. Let's list the steps we need to follow to create a number line for this situation.

First, we start at $0 .$
Then, we move $260$ units to the right. This represents the initial cost of the bike.
Finally, we move $55$ units to the left to represent Sarah using the coupon.

Let's mark these steps on a number line.

As we can see from the graph, the sum of

260

and

- 55

is located

55

units to the left of

260 .

Let's add the two integers to find out how much Sarah paid for her bike. Consider the expression from the exercise.

260 + (- 55)

Notice that we are adding two integers with different signs, one positive and one negative. This means that we will subtract the absolute values of the integers. Let's take a look.

∣ 260 ∣ - ∣ - 55 ∣

AbsPos

$∣ 260 ∣ = 260$

260 - ∣ - 55 ∣

AbsNeg

$∣ - 55 ∣ = 55$

260 - 55

SubTerm

Subtract term

205

Keep in mind that we moved a greater distance to the right than to the left because

∣ 260 ∣

is greater than

∣ - 55 ∣ .

Because of this, the result is positive and we can say that Sarah paid

$ 205

for her bike.

Exercise