I am having issues on learning how to do the substitution method for math! Anyone have any helpful hints for me?

Thank you,
Nicole

All you ened to remember for the substitution method is to rearrange one of your equations so that it reads x= something in terms of y or y= something in terms of x.

Then you plug this into your other equation, thus substituting one of your variables for the other. A simple example:




Now you take the first equation. It's already in terms of y= something in terms of x so you don't need to alter it. You plug this value of y into your second equation:



Now you have a very simple equation to solve, which gives x = 3. you can then use THIS value of x in either of the 2 starting equations to find y, that is:


OR


You can work out easily from either of these that y = 4

Then you can use your new value of x and y in the equation that you didn't use in order to check that it all makes sense.

I hope this helped hearing it in different words. If you have any problem please reply and we'll be happy to try to clarify the technique. As with all math techniques, solving a good number of problems to get the method down is the best way to remember it in future.