After gym class you are tasked with putting the 12 identical mats away into 4 racks. How many ways can you do this if each rack must contain at least one mat?

true statements:

a) x + y = y + x   ⇒ commutative property of addition

b) (x * y) * z = x * (y * z) ⇒ associative property of multiplication

d) (x + y) + z = x + (y + z) ⇒ associative property of addition

false statements:

c) x - y = y - x   should be: x - y = - y + x

e) (x - y) - z = x - (y - z) should be: (x - y) - z = x - (y + z)

step-by-step explanation:

or

step-by-step explanation:

we need to solve for 'x' the following equation:  

we have that:

⇒

⇒ ⇒

factorizing, we get that:

  ⇒

then, the solutions are: or

nothing extraneous has been found!