Reverse factoring

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Reverse factoring

by cmr209 » Thu Sep 03, 2009 12:52 am
In simplifying I'm unsure of when to perform reverse factoring.

a^2+a(2+a)-2

a^2+2a+a^2-2

2a^2+2a-2

2(a^2+a-1)

Please advise.

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by DanaJ » Thu Sep 03, 2009 5:01 am
Actually I don't see any other way of doing this one. This might not be the case for some other quadratics:

a^2 + 3a + 2 =
a^2 + a + 2a + 2 =
a(a + 1) + 2(a + 1) =
(a + 1)(a + 2)