It is important to remember that negatives out weigh your positives if they are placed against one another. It is also important to mention that evaluate everything to the fullest potential (i.e. making sure your x is multiplied by everything in the next column)

We learned these tricks and tips in Math 9 Honors last year, however I appreciated the review. This is something I struggled with last year, but coming at it with a fresh mindset helped it sink in a little more. I like to work piece by piece going downwards from the top row to ensure accuracy and create consistency.

Factoring a trinomial is much like doing a factor tree. I work with the things I know that are absolutes, like that I must have two x’s to create . I then put down all my tiles as positives and switch them to negatives after, because I find that once I have my basics down, I can fine tune the smaller but still important details.