When factoring trinomials, the first step would be to try to find the greatest common factor (GCF). We can then pull out the GCF by using the distributive property in reverse.
We can factor trinomials by first looking for factors that are common (that is the GCF)
Example:
Factor the following trinomials:
a) ad + dc + df
b) 2pq + 6p2q - 4 p3q
Solution:
a) ad + dc + df = d(a + c + f ) ← extract GCF d
b) 2pq + 6p2q – 4p3q = 2pq(1 + 3p – 2p2) ← extract GCF 2pq
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