Help! I don't know how to factor polynomials!

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I have an assignment due in about an hour, and I have no idea how to factor binomial, trinomials, or other polynomials. Don't ask why, the reasons are quite stupid, but in any case, I need a crash course on it.

Thank FSM, I've been given an extension until tomorrow. I still need help though. I need a math aspie to help me figure this out.

Can you do your best to type an example of one, the word factor always throws me off, I probably know how to solve them

Sent a pm with details

Welp, I just wrote the quiz I had due for tomorrow. I only got 46%, and some of the questions I got correct were just ones I took wild guesses on. I thought I had a method devised, but it turns out my method actually backfired on me, and the questions I tried it on I got incorrect, for the most part. Clearly, I don't understand the concepts of factoring polynomials, and my method of choosing answers was about as effective as buying stocks by throwing darts at a newspaper.

See your instructor during office hours. That's what office hours are for.
Of course you should look over whatever reading he/she assigned first.

If you need to learn before you can see your instructor then you should
consider getting an account on a forum specifically for these types of
questions, like www.mathhelpforum.com
www.freemathhelp.com
http://www.reddit.com/r/math
http://www.mathportal.org
etc.

A quick youtube search for "factor polynomials" yield many lessons also.

s**t, wish I could have been of more help

We can still be of help. Your grade is unimportant, your understanding is (in my opinion anyway). Feel free to post a question here and I'll try to explain it to you.

Factorizing polynomials is not an exact science. There is no single way to do it. Sometimes certain tricks or observations work, while other times they do not. If they're set as homework, there is probably a small set of tricks you're expected to know, and every problem you're presented with can be solved by one of them.

Have you looked at khan academy?

https://www.khanacademy.org/math/algebra

My kids have not needed to use this because I have been able to show them Algebra pretty well. I don't think I could explain it in just words online, but Khan academy has videos using equations which are COLOR CODED. I hope it helps!

I managed to talk to a tutor one on one after I wrote my exam today, and she taught me a lot of things about dealing with polynomials. Now, I can't honestly say I understand them much better than I did yesterday, but at least I now have some annotated notes on how to deal with certain common problems, step-by-step.