Mr. Pingas, a shark, wants to eat triangles for breakfast but is allergic to circles and squares. He bought a meal with 4 triangles, 2 squares, and 3 circles so he can only eat the triangles. When collecting like terms in an algebraic expression, terms with the same variable can be combined, while terms with different variables must be kept separate. Mr. Va China, another shark, ate 3 Asian boys he found but left the Caucasian boy.