Jade wants to verify that the expression 5(3x – 6) is equivalent to 15x – 30. She substitutes 2 into each expression and evaluates each one. How will she know if 5(3x – 6) is equivalent to 15x – 30?

Substitute x = 2 into both expressions. For 5(3x − 6), the value is 5(6 − 6) = 0; for 15x − 30, it is 30 − 30 = 0. The values are the same, which matches choice A. This checks that the expressions agree at x = 2; distributing 5 also shows they are equivalent for every value of x.

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