during a game of tug-of-war, your teacher states that your team's current position is -5 steps. What does this statement mean?
If you are talking about (-) negative and (+) positive that -5 (negative five) means that your -5 steps to the left. Because negative numbers are always to the left and positive numbers are always to the right.
-5 -4 -3 -2 -1 1+ 2+ 3+ 4+ 5+
-5 is where you are.