Question

How do you write the algebraic expression 8 less than a number x?

Answer 1

Hint: In this question, we need to write an algebraic expression for 8 less than a number x. For this a number is supposed as x. According to the statement, we need to decrease the number by x, so we will subtract 8 from x and try to write it in the form of algebra. Less than refers to subtraction.

Complete step by step answer:
Here we are given a statement as 8 less than a number x. We need to write it as an algebraic expression. This means we need to make the mathematical form of the statement using the variable x.
Here the variable x represents a number, less than represents subtraction.
We know that if we want a number such that 8 less than 12 then we write it mathematically as 12-8 = 4 to get number 4.
Similarly, here we need an expression where the number is x i.e. we want a number such that 8 is less than x.
Thus we will have the expression as x-8.
If we put any value of x, we can get a number which represents this expression. This means, if we put the value of x as 12 we get 8 less than 12 as 12-8 = 4.

Note:
Students should note that, for less than we use subtraction and for more than we use addition. A variable can also be considered as a number when we want to form an expression. Students can make the mistake of writing the expression as 8-x rather than x-8. Note that, 8 is less than x and not x is less than 8.