The binomial theorem is as follows:
(a+b)2=∑nk=0(nk)a(n−k)bk
The formula never helped me much either, but here is the explanation. Looking at any expansion, there are coefficients and exponents. For example, the expansion for (a+b)3 is as follows:
(a+b)3=a3+3a2b+3ab2+b3
Just looking at the coefficients, you get 1, 3, 3, and 1. This is the fourth row of the Pascal triangle.
For the exponents, you get 3, 2, 1, 0 for a; and 0, 1, 2, 3 for b. From this, we can deduce what (2x−3y)5 will be.
The expansion for just (x−y)5:
The exponents for x will be 5, 4, 3, 2, 1, 0 and the exponents for y will be 0, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5.
The coefficients will be the sixth row of the Pascal triangle, which is 1, 5, 10, 10, 5, 1
Therefore, the expansion will be (x−y)5=x5+5x4y+10x3y2+10x2y3+5xy4+y5
However, we are not done yet. We need to add the positive/negative signs, alternating.
(x−y)5=x5−5x4y+10x3y2−10x2y3+5xy4−y5
Using this equation, you can plug in the values to find the given expression.
I hope this helped,
Gavin.