Year 8 Interactive Maths - Second Edition

The Distributive Law

Consider the expression a(b + c).

This expression represents the area of a rectangle of length b + c and width a.  So, this expression can be represented as:

This can be split up into two parts as follows:

This suggests that:

This is called the Distributive Law.

Example 14

Solution:

Example 15

Solution:

Example 16

Solution:

Key Terms

Distributive Law