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Please help me on math challenge II-A week four homework

 
 
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Please help me on math challenge II-A week four homework
by Yoyo Yang - Monday, 2 July 2018, 12:36 PM
 

I have one question on the handout.

When factoring on multiple questions, I get this result or something close to this: nx^4+nx^3+nx^2+nx+n (n=a number)

I know I didn't finish factoring, so I tried to factor more.  The problem here is, I don't understand how to factor the result above. So I went on redshelf.com and looked up the examples we did in class. After looking at it, I still cannot understand. Can someone please explain how to factor problems like the one above clearly?

Thank you so much!

Yoyo Yang

 
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Re: Please help me on math challenge II-A week four homework
by Areteem Instructor - Tuesday, 3 July 2018, 9:48 AM
 

Hi Yoyo!

It would be helpful if you could post more information regarding this question. However, one way to start could be by using a variable like u or v to substitute for certain expressions in the question.

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Re: Please help me on math challenge II-A week four homework
by Yoyo Yang - Thursday, 5 July 2018, 12:13 PM
 

Thank you Mr. John! One of the questions I had a problem on was problem 25. If you can, may you please show me a kind of trick that can help factor this kind of problems?

Thank you again!

Yoyo Yang

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Re: Please help me on math challenge II-A week four homework
by Areteem Instructor - Friday, 6 July 2018, 9:28 AM
 

What you want to notice here is that this problem looks a lot like the expansion of (x+3)^3. In fact, the problem is equal to (x+3)^3 - x - 3 = (x+3)^3 - (x+3). Let me know if that helps!

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Re: Please help me on math challenge II-A week four homework
by Yoyo Yang - Friday, 6 July 2018, 11:16 AM
 

Thank you!