Chelsea shows her work in finding the solution to 4x−5=2+3(x−3)

Question

. After checking her answer in the original equation, she found that it did not work. Where did she make a mistake?

4x−5
=2+3(x−3)
Step 1
4x−5
=2+3x−9
Step 2
−3x
−3x
x−5
=2 −9
Step 3
x−5
=−7
Step 4
−5
−5
x
=−12
CLEAR CHECK

Step 1
: She distributed incorrectly.

Step 2
: She subtracted 3x
incorrectly.

Step 3
: She simplified incorrectly.

Step 4
: She subtracted 5
instead of adding 5
.

Answer 1

So, Chelsea's mistake was in Step 2 when she subtracted 3x incorrectly. It should have been 4x - 5 = 2 + 3x - 9, which would simplify to x - 5 = -7.