[Math10] What I learned this week [Nov 10th]

This week I learned all about factoring polynomials! Here’s how:

Example: Factor a simple trinomial (x^2 + 8x + 12)!

Step 1:

First, imagine we are going to split the x^2 into two! We should start off with this:

(x    )(x    )

Step 2:

Inside the blank spaces in the brackets, there should be a number! To find these numbers, we look at the second and third term! What 2 numbers multiplies to 12 and adds up to 8? These two numbers are 2 and 6:

2 x 6 = 12

2 + 6 = 8

Our expression should look like this:

(x + 2)(x + 6)

We have factored the polynomial!

Thanks for reading!

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