Here you will learn about solving equations, including linear and quadratic algebraic equations, and how to solve them.
Students will first learn about solving equations in grade 8 as a part of expressions and equations, and again in high school as a part of reasoning with equations and inequalities.
Every week, we teach lessons on solving equations to students in schools and districts across the US as part of our online one-on-one math tutoring programs. On this page we’ve broken down everything we’ve learnt about teaching this topic effectively.
Solving equations is a step-by-step process to find the value of the variable. A variable is the unknown part of an equation, either on the left or right side of the equals sign. Sometimes, you need to solve multi-step equations which contain algebraic expressions.
To do this, you must use the order of operations, which is a systematic approach to equation solving. When you use the order of operations, you first solve any part of an equation located within parentheses. An equation is a mathematical expression that contains an equals sign.
There are two sides to an equation, with the left side being equal to the right side. Equations will often involve algebra and contain unknowns, or variables, which you often represent with letters such as x or y.
You can solve simple equations and more complicated equations to work out the value of these unknowns. They could involve fractions, decimals or integers.