Question

Which of the following shows the best way to set up the product of (2x - 5) and
(4 - 3x + 4.)?

Answer 1

C

Explanation:

It usually works best to use the polynomial with fewer terms as the multiplier. A row of partial products is written for each term of the multiplier, so the fewer terms will result in fewer rows of partial products.

In order to keep like terms together, it is preferable to allocate a separate column of the multiplication tableau to each power of the operands or product. This means we want to make note of the fact that the cubic multiplicand has a coefficient of 0 for its x^2 term.

The best setup is the one shown in the attachment.