What happens to the literal coefficient when you collect like terms?

Answer 1

Lets look at an example. In the expression 21x+42y x is a litteral coefficient of 21 and y is a literal coefficent of 42. We could write this as 21(x+2y) so we add the literal coefficients, well we add one of them to 2 times the other one. if you had 3x+5y, there is nothing you can really do to add these literal coefficients. How about a multiplication problem, 3xy(2xy)=6x^2y^2 so we multiply the literal coefficients. So the answer is it depends on the problems, sometimes we add the, sometimes we multiply them, sometimes we divide them and sometimes we can not do anything!