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McGraw Hill Glencoe Algebra 2, 2012

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McGraw Hill Glencoe Algebra 2, 2012 View details

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Exercise 3 Page 871

Is there a greatest common factor? What other factoring technique could you use according to the number of terms?

Prime

Practice makes perfect

We want to factor the given polynomial. Note that it has two terms.

x^3+9 First, notice that there is no greatest common factor. There are three additional common factoring techniques for binomials.

Difference of Two Squares
Difference of Two Cubes
Sum of Two Cubes

Since the given polynomial is a sum, we cannot use the difference of two squares. Furthermore, although the first term is a cube, the second one is not. Therefore, we cannot use the sum nor the difference of two cubes. The given polynomial cannot be factored; it is prime.

Extra

Factoring techniques

There are different factoring techniques to apply according to the number of terms the polynomial has.

Number of Terms	Factoring Technique
Any number	Greatest Common Factor (GCF)
Two	Difference of Two Squares, Sum of Two Cubes, or Difference of Two Cubes
Three	Perfect Square Trinomials, or General Trinomials
Four or More	Grouping

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