How do you factor #-12x^2+x+20#?

1 Answer
Feb 28, 2017

#(4-3x)(5+4x)#

OR

#(3x-4)(-4x-5)#

OR

#-(3x-4)(4x+5)#

Explanation:

#-12x^2 +x+20# is not a comfortable quadratic to work with because of the negative sign at the front.

There are 2 ways around the problem.

#1.# The last term is positive, so we can just re-arrange the terms to have a positive term at the beginning:

#20+x -12x^2# which will factorise as #(4-3x)(5+4x)#

#2.# Sometimes re-arranging will not work because the last term might be negative as well.

Divide #-1# out as a common factor. This has the effect of changing the signs.

#-12x^2 +x+20 = -1(12x^2 -x-20)#

This factorises as

#-(3x-4)(4x+5)#

The expression can be left like this, or the negative sign can be multiplied by EITHER of the two brackets. NOT BOTH!

#-(3x-4)(4x+5)#

OR

#(-3x+4)(4x+5) = (4-3x)(5+4x)#

OR

#(3x-4)(-4x-5)#