Why is the expression 7a + 8z - 9x in simplest form?

Why is the expression 7a + 8z - 9x in simplest form?

• A. It has no like terms and no parentheses.
• B. It is fully factored.
• C. It contains all variables in each term.
• D. It contains a common factor across all terms.

Answer: (A)

Simplest form means you can’t combine like terms and there’s nothing more to factor out. In 7a + 8z - 9x, each term has a different variable (a, z, and x), so there are no like terms to combine. There are also no parentheses to simplify and no common factor that can be pulled out of every term—the coefficients 7, 8, and 9 have no common factor besides 1, and the variables are different across terms. Because of these reasons, the expression is already in its simplest form.

Simplest form means you can’t combine like terms and there’s nothing more to factor out. In 7a + 8z - 9x, each term has a different variable (a, z, and x), so there are no like terms to combine. There are also no parentheses to simplify and no common factor that can be pulled out of every term—the coefficients 7, 8, and 9 have no common factor besides 1, and the variables are different across terms. Because of these reasons, the expression is already in its simplest form.