Using these unit vectors helps one keep track of the direction of the components. This means that I can write the above example for vector A as: An Example: I think you are ready for a real example.

Practise using vector components when adding, subtracting or calculating the magnitude of vectors ahead of your National 5 Maths exam.

And if we wanted to add or subtract two vectors, that's easy enough -- we just separate them each into their component parts and add or subtract each component separately.