WHAT IS A QUADRATIC?
A quadratic is a type of algebra problem that looks like this:
ax² + bx + c
The two main things you do with quadratics:
FACTOR THEM
"...rewrite as something like (x + 2)(x + 3) (like undoing multiplication)."
SOLVE THEM
"..find what x equals (usually when the whole thing = 0)."
FACTORISING
In some cases you can very quickly factorise if it comes in a format like those listed below.
"For example in a) x² - 4, the 4 can be expressed as 2², so we get x² - 2², which can easily be factorised as (x+2) (x-2)
"Once you have factorised the expression, we want to work out the x-values that give a value of zero, so it is set to zero:
like this: (x+5) (x+3) = 0
clearly, X will be either a '-5' or a '-3'
SOLVING QUADRATICS BY FACTORISING
SOLVING QUADRATICS BY FORMULA