Homework Help: Intermidia Algebra

Posted by Elisa on Sunday, June 19, 2011 at 11:12am.

Andrew factored the expression -12x^3-28x^2-3x as -4x (3x^2-7x+9). But when Melissa applied the distributive law and multiplied out -4x (3x^2-7x+9), she got -12x^3+28x^2-36x; thus, Andrew’s solution does not appear to check. Why is that? Please help Andrew to understand this better. Explain your reasoning and correctly factor the original expression, if possible. If the expression is prime, so state.

Intermidia Algebra - Henry, Sunday, June 19, 2011 at 7:41pm
Given: -12X^3 - 28X^2 - 3X.

Andrew made 2 mistakes:
1. You can't factor out -4x, because -3
is not divisible by -4.

2.The 2nd term in the parenthesis should be +7X.

You can only factor out an X:
X(-12X^2 - 28X - -3).

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