How do you factor $15ab-12+18a-10b$ ?

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Answer 1 · 2017-05-24T08:31:34

$(3a-2)(5b+6)$

Let:

$P(x) = 15ab-12+18a-10b$

First we note that there are two terms that contain $a$ , so gather these terms up and factor out $a$ :

$P(x) = 15ab+18a-12-10b$
$" " = a(15b+18)-12-10b$

The term in brackets also has a common factor of $3$ , so:

$P(x) = a(3(5b+6))-12-10b$
$" " = 3a(5b+6)-12-10b$

And for the second terms we have a common factor of $3$ ,so:

$P(x) = 3a(5b+6)+2(-6-5b)$

We can also factorise $-1$ from the second term to get:

$P(x) = 3a(5b+6)-2(6+5b)$
$" " = 3a(5b+6)-2(5b+6)$

Finally, we now have two terms with a common factor of $(5b+6)$ so:

$P(x) = (3a-2)(5b+6)$

How do you factor 15ab-12+18a-10b15ab-12+18a-10b?