Math Snap

STEP 1

What is this asking?
We need to distribute the $-3$ and the $-a$ and then combine like terms.
Watch out!
Don't forget to distribute the negative signs correctly, and be careful when combining terms with different variables.

STEP 2

1. Distribute the $-3$.
2. Distribute the $-a$.
3. Combine like terms.

STEP 3

Alright, let's kick things off by distributing the $-3$ to both terms inside the first parentheses.
Remember, this means multiplying $-3$ by each term inside!

STEP 4

$$-3 \cdot 3x + (-3) \cdot (-4a) \cdot 1$$ Multiplying $-3$ by $3x$ gives us $-9x$.
And multiplying $-3$ by $-4a$ gives us $+12a$.
Don't forget that multiplying two negatives gives a positive!
And multiplying by $1$ doesn't change the value.
So, we have $-9x + 12a$.

STEP 5

Now, let's tackle the second part of the expression.
We'll distribute the $-a$ to the terms inside the second parentheses.

STEP 6

$$-a \cdot 2y + (-a) \cdot 5x$$ Multiplying $-a$ by $2y$ gives us $-2ay$.
And multiplying $-a$ by $5x$ gives us $-5ax$.
So, we have $-2ay - 5ax$.

STEP 7

Time to bring it all together! Let's combine the results from the previous two steps.

STEP 8

We had $-9x + 12a$ from distributing the $-3$, and $-2ay - 5ax$ from distributing the $-a$.
Putting it all together, we get:
$$-9x + 12a - 2ay - 5ax$$

STEP 9

Now, let's look for like terms.
Remember, like terms have the same variables raised to the same powers.
We have terms with $x$, terms with $a$, terms with $ay$, and terms with $ax$.
Since none of the terms are alike, we can't combine anything.

Our final, simplified expression is $-9x + 12a - 2ay - 5ax$.