Factoring by Any Method (1.9.4)

Question 1

• Never get discouraged if your first technique for factoring doesn’t work. It happens to everyone. Sometimes you need to use more than one method for factoring to factor a single polynomial.

Answer 1

• Never get discouraged if your first technique for factoring doesn’t work. It happens to everyone. Sometimes you need to use more than one method for factoring to factor a single polynomial.

Question 2

• Methods of factoring –
• Greatest Common Factor: the GCF is factored out of every term
• Perfect Square Trinomials: (a^2 + 2ab + b^2) = (a + b)^2
• Difference of Two Squares: a^2 - b^2 = (a + b)(a - b)
• Difference of Two Cubes: (a^3 - b^3) = (a - b)(a^2 + ab + b^2)
• Sum of Two Cubes: a^3 + b^3 = (a + b)(a^2 - ab + b^2)

Answer 2

• Methods of factoring –
• Greatest Common Factor: the GCF is factored out of every term
• Perfect Square Trinomials: (a^2 + 2ab + b^2) = (a + b)^2
• Difference of Two Squares: a^2 - b^2 = (a + b)(a - b)
• Difference of Two Cubes: (a^3 - b^3) = (a - b)(a^2 + ab + b^2)
• Sum of Two Cubes: a^3 + b^3 = (a + b)(a^2 - ab + b^2)