Collect like terms: expressions with two variables and a constant, shuffled so the like terms are not already next to each other.
Grade 6–Grade 9 · every refresh draws a new set · answer key included
Simplifying expressions worksheets
Simplify each expression by collecting like terms.
Simplifying expressions worksheets — answer key
Simplify each expression by collecting like terms.
20 problems · US Letter · answer key — 2 sheets, page breaks marked in the preview
Collecting like terms is the first thing algebra asks a pupil to do that has no arithmetic answer: 3x + 2x is 5x, and that is as far as it goes. The difficulty is not the addition, it is knowing which terms may be combined — and a page where the like terms sit next to each other lets pupils succeed without deciding anything. Here the terms are shuffled, so 4x + 3y − x has to be sorted before it can be simplified.
Grade 6 to Grade 9, ages eleven to fifteen. It usually arrives just before or alongside two step equations, and it is the skill that makes expanding brackets possible a year later.
Begin with positive terms only. Negative terms make the same exercise substantially harder, because a term that is being subtracted has to be carried with its sign when it moves — that is where the mistakes live, and it is worth a lesson of its own rather than an afterthought on the same page.
Adding unlike terms is the headline error: 3x + 2y written as 5xy or 5x. The second is losing a minus sign when the terms are rearranged, which is why the negative setting deserves its own page. The third is combining a term with the constant, which is the same misconception as the first wearing a different hat.