Equivalent expressions

Question

Use the distributive property to write an expression that us equivalent to 27x² - 42x+12 please show your work.

Answer 1

This seems like a factoring problem, so we ask ourselves, "what number do all the terms have in common?" We then divide all the terms by that number.

 

27x^2, -42x, and 12 all have the number 3 in common, so we can factor that number out. The result is

 

 

3(9x^2 - 14x + 4).

 

Note that if we distribute the 3 back into the polynomial, we get the original expression,

 

27x^2 - 42x + 12.

 

 

I hope that helped.