Fill in each blank with an integer (signed number).

(a) - 3 - (-6) = -3 + blank
(b) -4 - 2 = -4 + blank

1 answer

Let's solve each equation step by step.

(a) \(-3 - (-6) = -3 + \text{blank}\)

When subtracting a negative number, it is equivalent to adding the positive version of that number:

\[ -3 - (-6) = -3 + 6 \]

Now, we calculate:

\[ -3 + 6 = 3 \]

So,

\[ -3 - (-6) = 3 \]

This means we can fill in:

\[ \text{blank} = 6 \]

(b) \(-4 - 2 = -4 + \text{blank}\)

We can directly calculate \(-4 - 2\):

\[ -4 - 2 = -6 \]

Now, we need to express \(-6\) in terms of \(-4\):

\[ -4 + \text{blank} = -6 \]

To find the blank, we can rearrange this:

\[ \text{blank} = -6 + 4 = -2 \]

Thus, we can fill in:

\[ \text{blank} = -2 \]

So the final answers are: (a) \(6\) and (b) \(-2\).