College Math Placement Practice Test

How is Tuesday's chicken production expressed if it is described as ten less than twice the eggs produced on Monday, where m represents Monday's eggs?

1. 2m − 10

2. 2 + m − 10

3. 2m + 10

4. 10 − 2m

The correct answer is: 2m − 10

The correct representation of Tuesday's chicken production comes from translating the verbal description into a mathematical expression based on Monday's egg production, represented as \( m \). The term "twice the eggs produced on Monday" means you take \( m \) (the number of eggs from Monday) and multiply it by 2, which gives you \( 2m \). The phrase "ten less than" indicates that we need to subtract 10 from the result we obtained from that multiplication. Therefore, we take \( 2m \) and subtract 10 from it. Putting these pieces together, the expression for Tuesday's chicken production becomes: \[ 2m - 10 \] This aligns perfectly with the first choice. The other choices incorporate different arithmetic operations or do not adhere to the original description accurately, which can lead to confusion about the correct relationship between Monday's egg production and Tuesday's chicken production.