How do you know if you have to combine like terms in an equation? What would you see?

I’ll give some examples of like terms and see if you can find a pattern.

Ex 1, 4x is like terms with -6x and the 10x.

Ex 2, 6x^2 is like terms with -7x^2.

If you see two or more terms that have the same variable or variable with an exponent, then you combine those terms.

Examples;

2x + 3y - 5z
There are no like terms on the expression above so there is no need to combine.

I’m only in 9th grade so I’m not exactly an expert on math higher than highschool and there might be different rules that don’t want you to combine like terms right away when you see them; BUT combining like terms will make the equation/expression shorter which means less and faster work.

So combine like terms when you see them （╹◡╹）