why can’t we simplify 3x2+4x any further. If you were to incorrectly simplify this expression into a single term, what would that single term look like? Now, pick 1 or 2 numbers to plug in for “x” in 3x2+4x and your incorrectly-simplified single term expression. Compare the numbers you get. What conclusions can you draw?
You cannot combine an x2 and an x term.
You could "incorrectly" simplify it to anything. This is a nutty question: similar to asking what is the correct wrong answer to 4+7. Nuts to this question.
To explain why we can't simplify the expression 3x^2 + 4x any further, let's break it down.
In this expression, we have terms with different powers of x. Specifically, we have a term with x^2 (3x^2) and a term with x (4x). These terms cannot be combined or simplified because they have different powers of x.
To combine terms, they must have the same base and the same exponent. In this case, since the terms have different exponents, we cannot combine them.
If we were to incorrectly simplify this expression into a single term, we would remove the exponent and combine the coefficients. The incorrect simplified single term expression would be 3x + 4x, which can be further simplified to 7x.
Now, let's pick some numbers to plug in for "x" in the original expression (3x^2 + 4x) and the incorrectly simplified single term expression (7x) to compare the results.
Let's choose x = 2.
For the original expression, plugging in x = 2 gives us:
3(2)^2 + 4(2) = 3(4) + 8 = 12 + 8 = 20.
For the incorrectly simplified single term expression, plugging in x = 2 gives us:
7(2) = 14.
Comparing the numbers, we can conclude that when we incorrectly simplify the expression, we get a different result than when we evaluate the original expression. This shows that simplifying an expression incorrectly can lead to incorrect answers. It is important to follow the rules of combining like terms and handle the exponents correctly to get the correct results.