A piece of equipment with a book value of $5000 is sold for $3000. What is the amountof gainor loss on the sale? Show me how to get this answer

Dr. Cash 3,000
Cr. Equipment 5,000

Since you made no reference to depreciation, I will assume there is none.

Plug the difference, Dr. Loss 2,000

You can also think about it logically. If I sell something that is worth $5,000 for only $3,000, then I sold it for $2,000 less than what its worth, therefore I lost $2,000.