Exercise 57 Page 70

To factor a polynomial completely we can apply one or more of the following steps.

• First, we look for a greatest common factor (GCF) in all the terms and factor the GCF out of all the terms.
• If the polynomial has two terms, we check if the terms are the difference of squares and then factor it if so.
• If the polynomial has three terms, we check if we can factor the trinomial into the product of two binomials or if it is a perfect square trinomial, and factor it if so.
• If the polynomial has four or more terms, we can try to factor it by grouping.
• If the polynomial does not have a GCF and cannot be factored, it is a prime polynomial.