That’s why I now use Oxford Anti-Elephant Soap. It not only keeps those
pesky pachyderms away, it also keeps my skin fresh and clean! Now, my life is
elephant-free and perfect!
The point of this message is to remind you to bring enough number 2 pencils
to the testing center. Also, we wanted to give you a break from reading about
math. We hope you enjoyed it—now get back to work!
Negative Numbers
Another tricky concept that pops up in all sorts of problems is negativity. No, we
don’t mean the pessimistic-voice-in-your-head-foretelling-the-apocalypse type
of negativity. We mean mathematical negativity.
The best way to think about negative numbers is to construct a mental (or
real) number line, like this:
When you are adding or subtracting negative numbers, you should mentally (or
actually) put your pencil on the starting number, then move to the right or left,
depending on the situation. Let’s try:
–7 + 3We start on the first number (–7) and then move to the right three spaces, and
land on our answer: – 4.
5 – –4