How do you simplify #4x^2+3x+1-8x#?

1 Answer
George C.
Jun 7, 2015

#4x^2+3x+1-8x#

#=4x^2+3x-8x+1#

#=4x^2+(3-8)x+1#

#=4x^2-5x+1#

#=(4x-1)(x-1)#

Incidentally, there are a few different ways to spot this last step, including this little trick:

Given #4x^2-5x+1#, extract the digits to get #451# and factor that to get #41xx11#. Then taking the #-# sign into account, #41# becomes #(4x-1)# and #11# becomes #(x-1)#. (This only works if the multiplication involves no carrying of digits)

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