Factoring Special Products
Factoring: The reverse of multiplication Use the distributive property to turn the product back into factors. To do this, look for the GCF!
Example: 5x 2 -15x GCF = 5x Pull out 5x from each term! 5x(x-3) is the factored form
12x 2 -18x+6 GCF=6 6(2x 2 -3x+1)
Factoring Special Products a 2 -b 2 =(a+b)(a-b) This is the difference of 2 squares!
Perfect Square Trinomial Pattern *Look to see if the first and last terms are perfect squares, and the middle term is 2ab - if so - it will factor into
FACTOR: Perfect square polynomial: (4y + 3) 2
Difference of perfect squares: (9-3x 2 )(9+3x 2 )
Doesn’t factor, no common factor except 1!
Perfect square polynomial: (2c-9) 2