Subtracting Integers (Jump to: Lecture | Video )

2 - 5 = ?

How do we solve the above equation? If you have trouble subtracting integers, try adding the integer's inverse instead:

2 + (-5) = ?

Let's solve this equation using the number line.

Figure 1.

We start at zero. Because the first term is 2, we start by adding 2:

Figure 2.

Next, because the second term is (-5), we move 5 places to the left on the number line:

Figure 3.

We find a final answer of -3.

2 - 5 = -3