Use mental math to guess the starting value for the table.
2
Practice makes perfect
We want to use a table to solve the given equation.
4x-1=7
In order to choose a good starting point for our table, let's pretend that the equation is 4x=7. What multiplied by 4 would get us close to 7? 2 or 3 would be equally valid, so let's try those. We should also try one digit less and one digit greater, just to be on the safe side.
x
4x-1
=
1
4 (1)-1
3
2
4 (2)-1
7
3
4 (3)-1
11
4
4 (4)-1
15
We can see that x=2 is the solution to our equation.