• When factoring Polynomials, you are putting the brackets back in the equation.
• The first thing to look for is common numbers, if they are dividable by any of the same number, it is not prime.
• If there is a common factor, you divide all the numbers by it and place it in front of brackets.
• The second thing to check for is perfect squares, if you have a binomial with a negative sign in the middle and everything is a perfect square, you can factor it into 2 binomials. You take the square root of the first number (usually X²) and put one of the starts of both brackets, then you take the square root of the other number (usually constant) and make a positive copy in one bracket and a negative copy in the other bracket.
• If it is a trinomial, with X² you can try and factor it using this method; you find 2 factors for the constant that add up to the number before the X, If that number is a negative, you need to make sure both factors are negative and if both the constant and the coefficient are negative, one should be positive and one should be negative. Once you have the 2 integers, you put an X at the beginning of each bracket and add the integers (one in each bracket)

Example:

X² – 12x +32

-> (X-4) (X+8)