Benjamin T. answered • 07/30/21
2nd Year Master's Student in Math
Looks like we want the greatest common factor (gcf) here. Let's look at each variable / number separately. Consider 'x', on one side of the subtraction there is an x2 and on the other side we have a x3 and you can only factor out the lowest number of x's between the two, so you can factor out an x2 from both. For the y's, one side only has a y2, which is smaller than y5, so you will factor out a y2 from both. Now for the numbers, 9 goes into both 27 and 72, and when you factor out a 9 you will end up with a 3 and 8, respectively, which don't have any common factors remaining. After you factor all of these out you are done.
