Chapter 2 - Solving Equations - 2-3 Solving Multi-Step Equations - Practice and Problem-Solving Exercises - Page 98: 13

p=6

We first combine like terms to obtain that $3p-2=16$. We need to get the p alone, so we cancel out the subtraction by adding 2 on both sides. This leaves us with the equation 3p=18. We use division to cancel out multiplication, so we divide both sides by 3 to get that p=6. We plug 6 in for p and confirm that our answer is, indeed, correct.