I think we might have touched on this rule before but this week I really learned what it is and how to use it.

#1 is does everything in the expressions have something in commun? If so divide everything by that and don’t forget to put brackets around the expressions with the number everything’s divided by in front of the brackets.

#2 are there two terms? And is it difference of squares? If so the answer will be the numbers that are multiplied together to get the square root.  For example 16x^2-49 =(4x+7)(4x-7)

#3 is quite similar to number 2 if the expression is a trinomial check to see if there is a pattern that works for it, such as x^2-4 Which works out nicely to be (x+2)(x-2).

#4 Is the most helpful, once you reach number 4 use a square divided into 4 squares. Place the first term in the top left corner and the last term in the bottom right, multiply the first term and last term together then make a list of numbers that can be multiplied together to equal the same as the other two terms. Once you’ve found one that is equal to the other terms multiplied together make sure the two numbers you chose can be added or subtracted from each other to equal the term in the middle of to original expression. This whole process can be quite confusing, I find visuals help for this one.