9/4/2019 SparkNotes: Prealgebra: Operations: Properties of Addition

PREALGEBRA: OPERATIONS
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Properties of Addition

Sometimes it is necessary to add long strings of numbers without a calculator. For

example, one might be asked to nd 48 + 33 + 52 + 11 + 17. This sum is di cult to
compute without a calculator, but the task can be made a lot easier by knowing some
simple properties of addition. In this section, we will focus on these properties, which
will help make "mental math" easier and will be useful in later sections of Pre-Algebra.

Commutative Property

The Commutative Property states that for any numbers a and b, the following is always
true:

a+b=b+a

For example, 3 + 5 = 5 + 3. We can see that this is true because 3 + 5 = 8 and 5 + 3 = 8, so

3 + 5 and 5 + 3 are equal to each other. Another way to think of the commutative
property is the following: if you have a quarter and a dime in your pocket, and you
add them together, you will come up with the same amount of money whether you
add the quarter to the dime or the dime to the quarter.

By the commutative property, if we add two or more numbers, we can always add
them in any order. This is useful because it might be easier to add numbers in a
di erent order than the order given. In our example above, it takes a long time to add

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9/4/2019 SparkNotes: Prealgebra: Operations: Properties of Addition

the numbers from left to right (try it). However, because addition has the commutative
property, we can switch the order of the numbers in the expression:

48 + 33 + 52 + 11 + 17 = 48 + 52 + 33 + 17 + 11

This new expression is easier to evaluate, because 48 + 52 = 100 and 100 + 33 + 17 =

150. It is easier to add numbers to numbers which end in "0". This expression can be
made even easier to evaluate with the associative property:

Associative Property

The Associative Property states that for any numbers a, b, and c, the following is always
true:

(a + b) + c = a + (b + c)

For example, (2 + 4) + 7 = 2 + (4 + 7). We can see that this is true because (2 + 4) + 7 = 6 + 7

= 13 and 2 + (4 + 7) = 2 + 11 = 13, so (2 + 4) + 7 and 2 + (4 + 7) are equal to each other. Or we
can once again think about it using the example of coins: if I have a nickel and a dime
in my left pocket and a quarter in my right pocket, I will have the same amount of
money if I take the dime out of my left pocket and put it in my right pocket with the
quarter.

Not only can we add numbers in any order, we can also add pairs of numbers within
the expression before adding them all together. In other words, we can put parenthesis
around any two (or more) numbers and add those numbers separately. Using our
example above, we can rearrange the numbers using the commutative property and
then use the associative property to add them in pairs:

48 + 52 + 33 + 17 + 11 = (48 + 52) + (33 + 17) + 11 = 100 + 50 + 11

It's a lot easier to add these three numbers in one's head than to add the original ve
numbers one by one, and both methods yield the same answer--161.

The Commutative Property of Addition can be remembered by remembering that

when only addition is involved, numbers can move ("commute") to anywhere in the
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9/4/2019 SparkNotes: Prealgebra: Operations: Properties of Addition

expression. The Associative Property of Addition can be remembered by remembering

that any numbers that are being added together can "associate" with each other.
Another good rule of thumb is, when trying to decide which properties to use, look for
numbers that add up to multiples of 10; these should be added rst because they are
easy to add to other numbers.

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