Factoring GCF Lesson

In our last lesson, we learned how to find the GCF or greatest common factor for a group of monomials. In this lesson, we will use that knowledge and learn how to factor out the GCF from a polynomial. Let’s begin by thinking about the distributive property:
2(3 + 5) = 2 • 3 + 2 • 5
4(3 - 5) = 4 • 3 - 4 • 5
At this point, we should know that the distributive property allows us to distribute multiplication over addition or subtraction. Since we are dealing with an equality, the reverse is also true. When we factor, we are reversing the distributive property:
Since 2 is common to both terms, we can move this outside of the parentheses:
2 • 3 + 2 • 5 = 2(3 + 5)
Since 4 is common to both terms, we can move this outside of the parentheses:
4 • 3 - 4 • 5 = 4(3 - 5)
Let's think about factoring a simple polynomial. Suppose we come across the following polynomial:
3x² + 12x
First, let's think about the GCF of the two terms. The GCF of 3x² and 12x is 3x. To make our next step crystal clear, let's rewrite our polynomial as:
3x • x + 3x • 4
Since 3x is common to each term, we can factor this out. This means we pull 3x out from each term and place it outside of a set of parentheses:
3x • x + 3x • 4 = 3x(x + 4)
3x² + 12x = 3x(x + 4)
To factor out the GCF from a polynomial, we can use the following steps:

• Find the GCF of the polynomial
• Wrap the polynomial inside of parentheses
• Inside of the parentheses, pull out the GCF from each term
  • We can do this by dividing each term by the GCF or we can factor each term and remove the GCF
• Write the GCF outside of the parentheses

Let's look at a few examples.
Example 1: Factor out the GCF.
16x⁵ - 4x³ + 2x
Step 1) Find the GCF of the polynomial:
Our polynomial has terms of:
16x⁵, 4x³, and 2x
GCF(16x⁵, 4x³, 2x) = 2x
Step 2) Wrap the polynomial inside of parentheses:
(16x⁵ - 4x³ + 2x)
Steps 3 & 4) Factor each term and remove the GCF, write the GCF outside of the parentheses:
(2x • 8x⁴ - 2x • 2x² + 2x • 1) =
2x(8x⁴ - 2x² + 1)
Example 2: Factor out the GCF.
25x⁴y² + 50x²y² - 10xy
Step 1) Find the GCF of the polynomial:
GCF(25x⁴y², 50x²y², 10xy) = 5xy
Step 2) Wrap the polynomial inside of parentheses:
(25x⁴y² + 50x²y² - 10xy)
Steps 3 & 4) Factor each term and remove the GCF, write the GCF outside of the parentheses:
(5xy • 5x³y + 5xy • 10xy - 5xy • 2) =
5xy(5x³y + 10xy - 2)
Example 3: Factor out the GCF.
22x³y² + 132x²y + 121x
Step 1) Find the GCF of the polynomial:
GCF(22x³y², 132x²y, 121x) = 11x
Step 2) Wrap the polynomial inside of parentheses:
(22x³y² + 132x²y + 121x)
Steps 3 & 4) Factor each term and remove the GCF, write the GCF outside of the parentheses:
(11x • 2x²y² + 11x • 12xy + 11x • 11) =
11x(2x²y² + 12xy + 11)

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