Math Strategies: Simplify

Confusing Math Problems? Simplify!

Multi-part math problems can be quite daunting, breaking down the problem into separate sections may  help understand them better.

For example,the following problem:

“The product of two consecutive negative even integers is 24. Find the numbers.”

May seem daunting at first. Breaking each section down yields the following:

• The product of two (two numbers multiplied together)
• consecutive (the numbers are right after each other in a given sequence ie- 1,2  in the sequence 12,3,4 or 20,30 in  10,20,30)
• negative ( the numbers must be from the scale below zero ie “-3” is a negative number- which happens to be the temperature here today)
• even integers (the numbers are multiples of 2 ie from this sequence .(..-8,-6,-4,-2,0,2,4,6,8....)
• is 24. (equals 24)
• Find the numbers.

So, which two even, negative numbers can be multiplied together to equal 24? See the answer Here.