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Course: Mathematics — Second Preparatory
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Curriculum

Mathematics — Second Preparatory

Unit 1: Real Numbers

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Unit 2: Algebra

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Unit 3: Geometry

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Unit 4: Statistics

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Text lesson

Factoring by the Greatest Common Factor

Mathematics — Second Preparatory

Factoring by the Greatest Common Factor

What factoring means

What factoring means

  • Factoring means writing an algebraic expression as a product of factors.
  • For example, the number 12 equals 3 × 4, and the expression 6x + 9 equals 3(2x + 3).
  • Taking out the greatest common factor is one of the simplest and most used methods of factoring.
  • The greatest common factor (GCF) of the terms of an expression is the largest expression that divides every term.
  • To find it, follow these steps:
  1. Find the GCF of the numerical coefficients, which is the largest number that divides all of them.
  2. Take each common variable with the smallest exponent that appears in the terms.
  3. Multiply these results together to get the GCF.
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