A labrador ran x feet at the dog park. A beagle ran 61​ less than the labrador.

Question

The labrador's tape diagram has been drawn for you. Choose the tape diagram that represents the distance the beagle ran.

x

Labrador

Beagle

x

Labrador

Beagle

You got it!

Now write an equation to represent the distance the beagle ran. Let y represent the beagle's unknown distance.

x

Labrador

Beagle

y

y= 

x

 

−

 

61​x

Great job!

You can represent the distance the beagle ran as 

y=x−61​x.

 Now rewrite the equation using the distributive property.

x

Labrador

Beagle

y

y= x−61​x
y= 

 x

Answer 1

It looks like you are trying to write an equation to represent the distance the beagle ran in relation to the distance the labrador ran.

You correctly established that the beagle ran 61 feet less than the labrador, which can be expressed with the following equation:

\[ y = x - 61 \]

To rewrite this equation using the distributive property, we can express it with the factor of 1:

1. Since there is no factor being distributed in the original equation \(y = x - 61\), we can just express it as:

   \[ y = 1 \cdot x - 61 \]

However, in this case, no further simplification or distribution occurs because we are not distributing a coefficient over a sum or difference.

So, the equation is sufficient as:

\[ y = x - 61 \]

This means the beagle's distance is exactly 61 feet less than the distance the labrador ran.