Solve 3x - 5 < 16

The first thing you should always do when approaching questions like this is to get the numbers on one side and the letters on the other. This makes the equation simpler and helps you to solve it. By adding 5 to both sides, you get 3x < 16 +5, therefore 3x < 21. Now, this equation is telling us that 3 times the value of x is less than 21. Therefore, to get the value of x on its own, we must divide both sides by 3. If we do this, we get x < 7. Therefore the answer to this equation is that x must be less than 7 (x < 7) for this equation to work.