Exercise 64 Page 246

Without graphing, we want to determine the number of $x\text{-}$intercepts in the given quadratic function. To do so, we will calculate the value of the discriminant. We first need to identify $a,$ $b,$ and $c$ in the given equation. We can see above that $a=1,$ $b=17,$ and $c=\text{-}2.$ Let's use these values to calculate the discriminant. Since the value of the discriminant is $297,$ the quadratic function has two $x\text{-}$intercepts.