The expression we have to factor is:
We need to find the greatest common factor. For this we identify two things:
• If the variable is in all of the terms, we take out the variable with the lowest exponent.
In this case, since x is in all of the terms, we take x out as the common factor.
• Also, we check if the coefficients (the numbers that accompany the variable) are multiples of the same number.
In this case, 3, 9, and 12 are all multiples of the number 3. So we take out also 3 as the common factor.
Before we factor the expression, we rewrite it as follows
As we can see, all of the terms have 3x as the common factor. So now, we factor it to get the final result:
Answer: The greatest common factor is 3x
And the factored expression is:
