Factoring Trinomials Part 1

In this section, we learn how to factor a trinomial (polynomial with three terms) with a leading coefficient of one. This is by far the easiest and most common problem that we deal with when factoring in algebra 1. The method to do this is essentially reversing the FOIL process that we learned to find the product of two binomials. To perform this operation, we look for two integers whose sum is b (coefficient of the middle term) and whose product is c (constant term). If we cannot find such numbers, the polynomial is said to be a prime polynomial. If we can find such numbers, we use them to fill in the two last positions in each binomial of our answer.