Week 8 – F.O.I.L

This week we learned (or at least reviewed) a way of remembering how to multiply polynomials, of course it would be more difficult with more terms in each equation but the easiest way to understand is just with two binomials. Using distributive property called F.O.I.L you can easily remember how to multiply them.

The acronym:

F – First term in each bracket – ac

O – Outside terms – ad

I – Inside terms – bc

L – Last term in each bracket – bd

The distributive property for binomials: (a+b)(c+d) = a(c+d) +b(c+d) = ac + ad + bc + bd

For example:

() ()

The only difficulty would be as there are more terms multiplying and keeping track of them start to become harder.