How do you solve #3x-2(x-5)<3(x-1)-2x-11#?

1 Answer
ProfLayton
Apr 18, 2016

You can't (or more correctly, there is no solution)

Explanation:

First, we expand everything we can:
#3x-2(x-5)<3(x-1)-2x-11#
#3x-2x+10<3x-3-2x-11#
Then simplify on both sides:
#x+10< x-14 #
Then move all the #x#'s to one side, but in this case if we do that, we get:
#10<-14#,
which is impossible!, because 10 is larger than -14. Because of this, we can conclude that no matter what number #x# is, the equation will never be true.

As a side note, if we did get a final result which was true e.g #2>1#, then that would mean all values of #x# would be correct

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