What is the first step in solving this equation?3(2x + 6) – 4x = 2(5x – 2) + 6

First use the distributive property to remove the parentheses: 3(2x + 6) becomes 6x + 18, and 2(5x − 2) becomes 10x − 4. This gives 6x + 18 − 4x = 10x − 4 + 6. So the first step is to use the distributive property on each side of the equation.

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