We want to write an equation for the given the sentence.
Twelve decreased by twice a number equals- 34
Notice that the last part of the sentence, ...equals - 34, tells us that something should be equal to - 34. So far we have the following equation.
...=- 34
The phrase that comes before ...equals - 34 tells us what should be on the left-hand side of the equation. Twelve decreased by twice a number means that we should subtract some number, which we can call x, multiplied by 2 from 12. Now we can write our equation.
Twelve decreased & by twice a number equals $- 34$
& 12 - 2x =- 34
We can solve the equation by isolating x on the left-hand side.
To solve an equation, we need to find the value of the variable that makes the equation true. We can do this by isolating the variable in one side of the equation. Let's see some things that we can apply on the equation to solve it!
