(parent). My son's problem says "the product of a number and 17"...supposed to write as expression... I'm thinking it would be a 17x=y but he's adamant that because the word "and" is in the sentence that he needs to add something as well.... (no math books provided by school so I can't look it up) Please give me correct way to write it

You are correct.

Ask him about these statements. The product of 2 and 4 is 8. We could also write it 2 times 4 equals 8.

No you are right. : 17x=y

that sentence means a number is multiplied by 17. since the number is unknown you would use "x". and it will give you your result "y".

Mrs. Sue. Please do more research before giving over 65% of us students wrong answers. :)

To correctly write the expression for "the product of a number and 17," you would use the multiplication operator to represent multiplication in mathematics. Here's how you can write the expression:

Let's assume the unknown number is represented by the variable "x."

The product of a number and 17 can be written as:

17 * x

In this expression, the asterisk (*) represents the multiplication operation, and "x" represents the unknown number.

So, the correct way to write the expression is 17 * x.

The word "and" does not require any additional terms to be added to the expression. Your initial suggestion, 17x = y, is incorrect in this case because it implies multiplication by x and equating it to y, which doesn't match the given problem statement.

Remember, always use the multiplication operator (*) to represent multiplication in mathematical expressions.