when solving an equation that involves fractions our first step is to get rid of those fractions as soon as possible by multiplying both sides of the equation by the common denominator for those fractions in this problem our denominators are 10 5 and 2 so the common denominator is 10 and we multiply both sides of the equation by 10 to get rid of the fractions on the left we have 3x + 2x and on the right we have 25 so simplifying the left side of the equation we have 5x = 25 dividing both sides by 5 x = 5 remember you can always check your answer to an equation here we would simply plug a five back in for each of the x's in the original equation to see if we end up with a true statement