How do you factor 6c³ + 11c² -10c?

1 Answer
May 23, 2015

6c3+11c210c=c(6c2+11x10)

=c(2c+5)(3c2)

I first noticed that all the terms were divisible by c, so separated that out as a factor.

I then looked for a factorisation of the form:

6c2+11x10=(2c+a)(3c+b)

=6c2+(3a+2b)c+ab

So I looked for a and b such that 3a+2b=11 and ab=10

I could tell that a must be odd, because otherwise both 2c and a would be even and all the resulting coefficients would be even.

So a=±1 or a=±5.

In order to get 3a+b=11 then the best choice to try seemed to be a=5, which forces b=10a=105=2.

So try (2c+5)(3c2) - works.