To solve a simple linear equation start by moving the numbers with a variable attached to one side of the equation and the numbers without a variable attached to the other side to move a number to a different side you need to subtract it from both sides. To do this we must also have multiple linear equations this is called a linear system it might also happen that a linear system does not have a solution to be able to solve a linear system we must at least have as many equations as there are variables furthermore when we have a total of n variables there must be exactly n linearly . Try the following approach to solve the equations and see if it works for you collect like terms this means to gather all the xs together all the ys together and all the regular numbers isolate the variable you wish to solve for if the problem asks you to solve for y you need to get y