Lesson 5.3 Factoring Trinomials

Lesson 5.3 video link here. (Video under development)

In Lesson 5.2, you explored factoring polynomials using greatest common factors. You also saw that factoring using a greatest common factor was the reverse of applying the distributive property.

In Lesson 5.1, you multiplied binomials, which often resulted in a trinomial.

Factoring using greatest common factors can't be used on its own to write a trinomial as a product of two binomial factors. But, is there a way to factor a trinomial into two binomials?

 


In Lesson 5.3, you will learn about

  • factoring trinomials of the form

  • factoring trinomials of the form

 

Warm Up

 

In Lesson 5.1, you used algebra tiles to determine the product of two binomials. Here, is shown.

  1. Where are the factors and the product located in the diagram?

  2. What shape does the product always make when two binomials are multiplied?

  3. Represent the trinomial by arranging algebra tiles into the shape described in part 2. A set of cut-out algebra tiles can be found at the end of the Unit 5 Appendix.

  4. Use your arrangement of algebra tiles to determine the factors of .

  5. Multiply your factors to verify the product is .