Solving Literal Equations

I know that in your Math studies, you have come across numerous formulas. Most of these formulas have probably involved geometry!

Have you ever been given a formula, and needed to solve for a variable within the formula? For example, let's take the distance formula. D = rt. Let's say that you know the distance is 50 ft and the time to travel was 5 minutes. You need to find the rate travelled. In this case, you need to solve for a variable within the formula (rate), and not the standard, (distance).

Yes, I know these problems are always a little more difficult. I'm going to show you a step that will make this problem easier to solve. We are going to be solving literal equations and this means that we will be solving a formula for a given variable.

We are going to use all of the rules that we've learned for solving equations to solve literal equations. You will need to perform "opposite operations" and whatever you do to one side of the equation you must do to the other side of the equation!

Let's look at a couple of examples.

Example 1

In this example, we'll use the distance formula that we talked about earlier.

Example 2

Ready to try a couple of practice problems?

Practice Problems

Answer Key

Problem 1

Problem 2

Great job! Now you are ready to move onto solving equations with variables on both sides.