Factor -5 out of -10a-25

Question

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Answer 1

Hey Bill

 

First off, take a deep breath. This problem seems hard because of all the negative signs, but it isn't that bad.

 

What does it mean to factor? The general idea is that you can 'undo' a FOIL or perhaps take out a number or variable from each part of the expression.

 

Let's look at each part as a separate piece.

 

5 goes into 10 how many times? Well, that's 2 times. You should look at how the negatives work. Since each of the values are negative, what do we know about how 2 negative values multiply? Double negatives become a positive. The 'a' is just some variable, and we leave it alone.

 

So we start with 2*a

 

Next, how many times does 5 go into 25? That's 5, and the double negative makes the term positive again.

 

-5*(2a +5)

 

We can easily check this by multiplying it out again using FOIL

 

-5*2a + (-5)*5

 

-10a -25

 

And we see that it works! Please let me know if you have any questions and I will get back to you as soon as I can

Answer 2

-10a - 25 = (-5) (2a + 5)

 

Hope this helps!