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what is the foil method ive seen people use that as a explnation for expressing trynomials for stuff like (3x+1)(2x-1)

User MadhaviJ
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1 Answer

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Answer:

First, Outer, Inner, Last: Usually referred to as FOIL for simplicity is a rule for expanding polynomials. It is quite straight forward. You can do as follows for any binomial expression multiplied by a secondary binomial as you have provided.

(3x+1)(2x-1).

Step 1 of FOIL is to multiply the first 2 expressions in your binomials.

(3x)(2x) = 6x^2

Step 2 is to multiply the first by the last

(3x)(-1) = -3x

Step 3 is to do the last by the first

(1)(2x) = 2x

Step 4 is to do the last by the last

(-1)(1) = -1

You are left with the following:

6x^2 -3x + 2x -1

ADD LIKE TERMS!!

6x^2 -x -1

Remember, -x and -1x are the same!

Hope that helps!

User Rom
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