Distributive Property
The distributive property enables you to simplify mathematical expressions. It is stated like this: a × (b + c) = a × b + a × c. In words, this just means that a number multiplied by two other numbers added together is the same as the sum of that number multiplied by each number individually. Kind of a mouthful, but the concept is simple. Let's take a look at an example:
2(3a + 4) = 2 × 3a + 2 × 4 = 6a + 8
See how the 2 is distributed across the terms within the parentheses? That's why they call it the distributive property!