MA, Stanford University
Teaching in the San Francisco Bay Area
Alissa is currently a teacher in the San Francisco Bay Area and Brightstorm users love her clear, concise explanations of tough concepts
If you were asked to compute 5 x 18 in your head, you might do 5 x 8 and add that to 5 x 10. This is doing the distributive property in your head, because you're doing 5( 8 + 10). Alternatively, from the beginning, you might do 5 x 20, and then that result subtract 5 x 2. This is also the distributive property, because you're doing 5 ( 20-2). Note that in both cases, the value in the parentheses is 18. The distributive property can help us do these kinds of mental calculations in multiple ways.
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