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with all of the rules and scenarios
remembering how to add and subtract
negative numbers can be difficult here's
a little trick to help you remember
let's say we want to solve three plus
negative seven first imagine a number
line with a bird sitting on our first
number three the operation plus or minus
tells you which end of the number line
to look at since we're adding our little
bird will look right towards the
positive end our second number tells us
how far to move in which direction to
move we'll move forward if it's positive
and backwards if it's negative since our
second number is a negative seven our
little bird is going to move backwards
seven spaces since he landed at negative
four that's our answer
three plus negative seven equals
negative four let's try another one what
about negative two minus negative four
our first number is negative two so
that's where we'll start our operation
is a - so our bird will look left
towards the negative end our second
number is a negative four therefore our
bird will move backwards four spaces our
bird landed at positive two and that's
our answer negative two minus negative
four equals two let's recap the first
number is where you start the operation
tells you where to look
plus right or minus left the second
number tells you how far to move and in
which direction positive forward or
negative backwards where you land is
your answer
that's it you now know a trick for
adding and subtracting negative numbers
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