week 17 blog post

This week in math we learned about the elimination method.  Elimination is an important method when it comes to systems of linear equations, and is also quite simple.

When solving an elimination question you can either add or subtract the system. You always want to look for the easier solution and personally, I would add all the time. To solve an elimination question we need to have a zero pair.  So, a pair that cancels out.  In some cases the zero pair is given to us but in most cases you will have to multiple the other line (or sometimes both) with a common number.

 

After doing this you have a zero pair so all you need to do is add the rest. You then solve for X. So in this example, you will need to divide 88 by -40.  You then have the answer to your X variable.  But to finish the question off to find the solution you then need to go back to the original system and pick one of the equations, replace X with the answer you got and solve for Y.  After doing all this you then have the solution.

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