Questions: What property of equality should be applied second when solving the equation -17/8 - p/4 = 3/8? division property of equality subtraction property of equality addition property of equality multiplication property of equality

Solution Steps

The given equation is:

\[ -\frac{17}{8} - \frac{p}{4} = \frac{3}{8} \]

To solve this equation, we need to isolate the variable \( p \).

The first step in solving the equation is to eliminate the constant term on the left side. We can do this by adding \(\frac{17}{8}\) to both sides of the equation:

\[ -\frac{17}{8} - \frac{p}{4} + \frac{17}{8} = \frac{3}{8} + \frac{17}{8} \]

This simplifies to:

\[ -\frac{p}{4} = \frac{20}{8} \]

Now, we need to isolate \( p \) by eliminating the coefficient \(-\frac{1}{4}\). To do this, we apply the multiplication property of equality by multiplying both sides by \(-4\):

\[ p = -4 \times \frac{20}{8} \]

Final Answer