In an elevator, you go up 3 floors and down 4 floors. Write an integer that represents the net change in your position.
The net change in your position is __ floor(s).
Would it be 1?
If we agree that up is +
and going down is -
you would have +3 - 4
= -1
The net change in your position can be determined by subtracting the number of floors you went down from the number of floors you went up. In this case, you went up 3 floors (which we can represent as +3) and down 4 floors (which we can represent as -4). To find the net change, we subtract the number of floors you went down from the number of floors you went up:
(+3) - (-4)
To subtract a negative number, we can rewrite the subtraction as an addition:
(+3) + (+4)
Simplifying the addition, we get:
+7
Therefore, the net change in your position is 7 floors.