Could you please assist me on how to work this problem? A student wrote 5 + 24+6=5 + 25 + 24 + 6 by the associative property. what error did the student make?
Certainly! Let's break down the student's expression and see where the error occurred.
The associative property states that the grouping of terms within an addition or multiplication expression does not affect the result. In other words, you can rearrange the terms without changing the sum or product.
The student's expression is:
5 + 24 + 6 = 5 + 25 + 24 + 6
To use the associative property, the student should have grouped the terms differently. In this case, the student made an error by incorrectly rearranging the terms.
To correct the expression using the associative property, you would need to group the terms in a way that does not affect the sum. Let's look at the correct expression:
5 + 24 + 6
Since there are only three terms in this expression, we cannot apply the associative property because it requires at least four terms. Thus, the error made by the student was assuming that the associative property could be used in this particular case.