Question

How do you solve $2x + 7 = x - 3$ ?

Answer 1

Hint: Adding or subtracting the same quantity or number from both sides of an equation gives an equation that is equivalent to the original equation. Using this idea, we can isolate the variable involved in the equation from the rest of the equation thus successfully solving it.

Complete Step by Step Solution:
The given question is $2x + 7 = x - 3$
To make it easier to find the value of x, we need to isolate the variable from the rest of the equation.
We can isolate the variable by subtracting x from both the left and right sides of the equation. This gives us the following expression,
$ \Rightarrow 2x + 7 - x = x - 3 - x$
$ \Rightarrow x + 7 = - 3$
Subtracting 7 from both sides of the expression, we get
$ \Rightarrow x + 7 - 7 = - 3 - 7$
Simplifying the above expression,
$ \Rightarrow x = - 10$

Hence, the value of x is -10.

Note:
We can verify the answer by substituting the value of x back in the expression given in the question. After making this substitution, we can find the values of LHS and RHS. If the values of LHS and RHS are equal, the answer is correct.