What makes terms like terms

As you can see, this algebraic expression is made of like and unlike terms. Let's walk through the process of simplifying expressions by identifying the like terms in the expression. We've taken the original expression and separated it into like terms.

Since the value of 14 has no variables, it's considered a constant term. Algebraic expressions with a lot of terms, variables, and exponents can be intimidating. But they become much less scary when you know how to identify and combine like terms.

Like terms have variables and exponents that match. When you know how to group the like terms of an expression, you can simplify and shorten them, making it much easier to solve. To use the site, please enable JavaScript in your browser and reload the page. We combine like terms to short and simplify the algebraic expressions , so we can work with them more easily. Like terms contain the same variable which is raised to the same power. When we have to simplify this algebraic expression, we can add the like terms.

Thus, the simplification of the given expression is 15x. In a similar way, we can perform all the arithmetic operations on the like terms. Consider terms as 5x, 6x, 2x, and -3x. Here all four terms are like terms because x is the common variable. To combine like terms, we have to add the coefficients and keep the variables the same. We add like terms to make one term. Here we have 10 terms. This is only xyz term. All these terms have xy. Thus, from the above table, we can say that algebraic terms with the same variables are added to each other.

The addition of certain terms was possible only because the variables in both these cases are the same even if the numerical coefficients are different which we can add as normal numbers and the variable factor remains as it is.

Now, the terms which have the same variables are called like terms.