Welcome to this deck on forming and solving equations. This is a really important skill in maths where you act like a detective, translating a problem written in English into the language of algebra. We'll learn how to take word problems, including those about shapes and real-life situations, and turn them into equations that we can then solve.

The first step is to identify the 'unknown' in a problem – the value you're trying to find. In algebra, we usually represent an unknown value with a letter, like x or n. For example, if a problem says 'I think of a number', you can just call that number 'x'.

Once you have a letter for your unknown, you can build expressions. If your number is 'x', then '5 more than the number' would be 'x plus 5'. 'Twice the number' would be '2x'. You're just translating key words into mathematical operations.