Factor trees may be used to find the GCF of difficult numbers. Be aware of opposites: Ex. (a-b) and (b-a) These may become the same by factoring -1 from one of them.

The Greatest Common Factor (GCF) of polynomials is the largest polynomial that divides evenly into the polynomials. For Example: GCF of 4x + 20x2y is 4x Trinomials with leading coeficient 1 can be …

This method is used to factor polynomials with 4 terms. The idea is to factor out the GCF from the first two terms, and then factor out the GCF from the second pair of terms, and hopefully you will have …

The Factor theorem states: “If “c” is substituted for x in a polynomial in x, and the resulting value after substitution is “0”, then x – c is a factor of the polynomial.”

A polynomial is completely factored if it is written as a product of a real number (which will be the same number as the leading coe cient of the polynomial), and a collection of monic quadratic polynomials …

b) Factoring using trial and error method ... Following rules of multiplication of two factors, we must get the first term 2x2, the middle term x, and the last term -15.

Factoring polynomials with three terms, or factoring trinomials, is the most important type of factoring to be mastered. Since factoring can be thought of as the reverse of multiplication, we will start with a …

We will do factoring with integer coefficients. Polynomials that cannot be factored using integer coefficients are called irreducible over the integers, or prime.

Objectives In this lesson we will learn to factor polynomials by finding the greatest common factor, and factor polynomials by grouping. Remark: factoring polynomials can be thought of as the operation of …

In the same way that dividing real numbers “undoes” the process of multiplication, factoring a polynomial separates it into the product of two or more other polynomials.