They aren’t brackets, they’re parentheses. Careful not to confuse them because they aren’t the same. The parentheses mean to distribute, so the 2x-3 would become 12x-18 multiply that by .5 and you get 12x-9=2x+4 then subtract the 2x from the 12x, and add the -9 to 4 you should end up with 10x=13. Divide, and the answer is x=1.3