Q:

Six times the sum of a number and 15 is -42

I am having some problems with solving this problem can someone please help me through it?

A:

Let's just translate the question word by word into something mathematical you're more familiar with. We're looking for a number. Let's call it $x$.
So, "the sum of a number and 15" we can write as $x+15$. We're told that $6$ times this sum is $-42$. When you see a word problem with $is$, that's almost always an equals sign, so what we have is $6(x+15) = -42$
Can you solve it from there?

