Daily Archives: October 9, 2018

Week 5 – Pre Calc 11

Math 11

This week in Pre Calc 11 we focused a lot on reviewing how to factor polynomial expressions. Mrs. Burton gave us a fun acronym to help us remember the steps to follow when figuring out how to factor the epressions: CDPEU.

Common: 7x+14 = 7(x+2)

Difference of squares (Binomial): x^2-25 = (x-5)(x+5)

Pattern: x^2+x+4

Easy: 1x^2

Ugly: 4x^2

One thing that I learned this week is how to factor Ugly equations. These equations are harder and more complex than the equations that we learned in Grade 10. For example: x^2+1.5x+0.5 may look like a very daunting and “ugly” expression because of the decimals, however if you were to change the expression so that the numbers were fractions instead of decimals than it would make it much easier to solve. Ex. x^2+\frac{3}{2}x+\frac{1}{2}. Once you have changed the decimals into fractions, you must put each term under a common denominator. Ex. \frac{2}{2}x^2+\frac{3}{2}x+\frac{1}{2}. From there you follow the acronym CDPEU and you find what they have in common and take it out of the equation. Ex. \frac{1}{2}(2x^2+3x+1). Once you have removed what they have in common you may than finish factoring the expression using one of the four methods that we learned in class. Ex. \frac{1}{2}(2x+1)(x+1). Onve you have finished factoring the equation, you can always check using the acronym to make sure that it can not be factored any further.

I have included an example below that shows the steps I would take to factor another challenging “ugly” expression that starts using fractions and not deciamls.