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Factoring Polynomials

I’m not sure how to factor a polynomial. We’re supposed to do something with the GCF. My book says something about distributing, but somebody else told me to divide by the GCF. Could somebody explain to me how to do this? Here are some examples… 15a-5a^2…-35x+42…12h^4+8h^2-6h…9m+m

Thank you!…by the way, the ^ mean raised to the__power.

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Answer #1

15a-5a^2

so basically you look at what they have in common… a is common in both of them… so a(15 - 5a) now you look for anything else in common… since they both have 5 in common (15/5 = 3 and 5/5 = 1) you take out the 5 5a (3 - 1a) (1a = a) 5a (3-a)

-35x+42 hmm ok, so lets see, lets try 7 (sometimes you just gotta pick numbers till you get something), so 35/7 = 5 42/7 = 6… sounds right… 7(-5x + 6)

12h^4+8h^2-6h ok so they all have an h… lets take that out…

h (12h3 + 8h - 6) ok, and they’re all divisible by 2… so… 2h (6h3 + 4h - 3) now you would usually check if the bracket can be broken up, but I dont think so in this case…

9m+m

well 9m + m = 10m…

Answer #2

Trust these people. I was about to type the same thing as thwm, but didn’t wanna repeat what was already said.

Answer #3

you need to take out common values to factor it… you distrubute it… I dunno what the heck GCF is though =\

so 15a-5a^2 would be… 5a(3-a)
since both terms had the 5a in common its factored out

and 12h^4+8h^2-6h would be… 2h(6h^3+4h-3)

get it? anyways hope that helps…

sorry im not that great at explaining it…

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