Today we started the Spring 2012 semester. For new parents/students, please refer to my teaching plan to know what we will cover in this semester.

After spending a little time on the exam, we continued from where we left off before the exam. We talked about a polynimial in factored form, and how to solve an equation already in factored form by using the zero product property.

We then focused on doing factorization for quadratic equation with the form of x^2 + bx + c = 0 (notice there is no “a” in front of x^2 term). This is the simplified version of a quadratic equation.

Basically for a quadratic equation of form x^2 + bx + c = 0 to be able to factor into (x + p)(x + q) = 0 form, then

p + q = b   and pq = c

So you start with the factors from c to pick out two so that their product is c, then you check if their sum is b. If so, you got it.

This needs practice to be good at and it really helps to be good at factorization. It will make your life with quadratic equations much easier. So do your homework below:

http://blog.newtonchineseschool.org/wangweidong/files/2012/02/Math7_Spring_HW_L1.pdf