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Identifying Like Terms

To identify like terms within an expression, you must look for terms sharing common traits. Specifically, look for terms that are either both constants or possess the same variable raised to the exact same exponent. For example, considering a collection of six terms—5x5x, 77, n2n^2, 44, 3x3x, and 9n29n^2—you can pair them by their common traits. The terms 5x5x and 3x3x form a pair of like terms, as do n2n^2 and 9n29n^2. Finally, the numbers 77 and 44 form a pair of constant like terms.

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Updated 2026-04-21

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