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Study Guides > Intermediate Algebra

Why It Matters: Review

Why review topics from earlier math classes?

Person standing at open refrigerator full of food. Leftovers again?
You have been in class all day, running around, picking up your kids from daycare and after a long, brutal commute you get home to realize you haven't thought about what to fix for dinner. You go to the fridge and all you see are leftovers, a jumble of unrelated bits and pieces from meals past. Despite your fatigue, you manage to cobble together a meal that everyone will eat willingly and to get on with your evening. In this section, you may feel like the topics are a cobbled-together meal of leftovers.  The goal is to give you a reminder of some of the skills and topics from earlier math classes that, like the box of leftovers in the back of your fridge, are easily forgotten by most people. Because sometimes we just forget how these concepts work . . . until we need them again.

Learning Outcomes

Properties of Real Numbers
  • Define real numbers and subsets of real numbers
  • Define properties of real numbers and use them to evaluate algebraic expressions
Multi-Step Equations
  • Use properties of real numbers to solve multi-step linear equations
  • Define and use the distributive property to solve linear equations
  • Classify solutions to equations
Problem Solving
  • Set up equations from descriptions of problems
  • Use formulas to solve application problems
  As you work through the rest of the sections of this course, please return to this review if you feel like you need a reminder of the topics covered. These topics were chosen because they are often forgotten and are widely used throughout the course. Don't worry, just like ketchup, these concepts have a long shelf life.

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