Eliminating Fractions from Multi-Step Equations

​Did you multiply both sides of the equation by five...?

​Did you multiply both sides of the equation by twelve?

​The numerator is left behind!

​Did you select the correct equation? If not...

​← Step #2: will subtracting twenty-one from five result in a positive or a negative value?

​Just to be safe, let's try two more examples.

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Hint: have you been taking notes or writing down your work the entire time? Doing so will help with both your memory and your understanding.

​Can I use this strategy with decimals?

​Yeah, you could. To do so, multiply each term in the equation by a value that changes the decimal to a whole number − the number's reciprocal would be ideal.

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This is simple with coefficients you can easily scale-up to a value of one, like 0.25 and 0.125 (multiply by 4 or 8, respectively). This gets complicated if the coefficient doesn't easily scale, though.

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For example, what if the coefficient is 0.325? With a little work, we can find that 0.325 times 40 equals 13. This means you would multiply each term in such an equation by 40, and then you would divide everything by 13 toward the end of the equation...

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You're probably better off leaving these terms as decimals and solving for your variable as it is.