A property is a characteristic about something that is always true. The distributive property of multiplication is a rule that is always true. There are many properties in math that you use regularly, like the commutative property (the property that says that you can multiply in any order, \(2 \times 3 = 3 \times 2\) ). The distributive property says that you can distribute a number being multiplied into parentheses. The following video will explain in more detail with some examples. Here is an example of the distributive property of multiplication.
\( 2 (1 + 3) = (2 \times 1) + (2 \times 3) = 2 + 6 = 8\)
Distributive property of multiplication
Video Source (03:11 mins) | Transcript
More Examples of the Distributive Property of Multiplication
Additional Resources
- Khan Academy: Distributive Property (Addition) (04:55 mins, Transcript)
- Khan Academy: Distributive Property (Subtraction) (02:10 mins, Transcript)
Practice Problems
Evaluate the following expressions:- \(4 \lgroup 3 + 4 \rgroup = ?\) (Solution
- \(\lgroup 2 + 9 \rgroup 3 = ?\) (Solution
- \(-8 \lgroup -2 + 5 \rgroup = ?\) (Video Solution
- \(\lgroup -2 + 3 \rgroup \lgroup -6 \rgroup = ?\) (Solution)
- \(\lgroup -9 - 4 \rgroup \lgroup -8 \rgroup = ?\) (Video Solution
- \(-5 \lgroup -7 - \lgroup -6 \rgroup \rgroup = ?\) (Solution
- \(\lgroup -5 - \lgroup -9 \rgroup \rgroup 6 = ?\) (Solution
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