Ask Me Help Desk - factor 3x to the second power minus 6x

Quote:

Originally Posted by kducan39

math help

I assume you want to factor this:

$ 3x^2 - 6x $

Do you notice that there are factors that divide evenly into both $3x^2$ and $6x$ ? If you divide $3x^2 -6x$ by that common factor, what are you left with?

Perhaps an example would help: consider how to factor $8x^3 + 6x^2$ . First notice that the '8' and the '6' have a common factor of 2, and the $x^3$ and $x^2$ terms have a common factor of $x^2$ . Consequently you can divide through by $2x^2$ to get:

$ 2x^2(4x+3) $

To check that this is correct try multiplying it out and see if you get the original equation back again:

$ 2x^2(4x+3) = 2x^2 \times 4x + 2x^2 \times 3 = 2x^3 + 6x^2 $

Now try his process with your problem. Post back with your answer and we'll check it for you.