Hey up, Jed. Remember when we helped Lady Charity Bore from ‘Heckaslike’ when she needed help lifting her pictures up of her beloved Yorkie dog?
Aye.
Oh there you are Jeffrey, my darling!
By ‘eck, that lass loves the little rascal.
Aye.
Lady Bore tells me she had 15 pictures in all. And I could see that six were already on the wall.
Using algebra, I was able to work out how many holes we needed.
I solved this equation by ensuring that only the ‘x’ is left on one side.
Whatever I did to one side I had to do to the other.
In this case, I subtracted six from both sides and I was left with x = 9.
By ‘eck, we need nine holes Jed. Job’s a good ‘un.
Aye, ‘reet’ good.

Equations
When you are solving an equation, you have to move everything except the missing number to one side.
Anything you do to one side, you must also do to the other.
For example: 6 + x = 15. To work out the value of x, first subtract 6 from the left side, 6 + x - 6 = x. Then subtract 6 from the right side too, 15 - 6 = 9. So you are left with x = 9.

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More on Number and number processes
Find out more by working through a topic
- count24 of 25

- count25 of 25

- count1 of 25

- count2 of 25
