Answer
$b=-4 $
Work Step by Step
The fractions on the left side of the equation already have a common denominator of 13. Thus, we can subtract the numerators to get that $-2b/13=8/13$. To cancel out the two denominators, we multiply both sides of the equation by 13 to get that $-2b=8$. In order to cancel out multiplication, we use division, so we divide both sides by -2 to get that $b=-4$. We plug -4 in for b and confirm that our answer is, indeed, correct.
