Solving Quadratic Equations by Factoring - Problem 2

All right here’s a problem that I want to solve by factoring. But before I can factor this I need to get this equation that’s equal to 0. I need to subtract 15 from both sides before I can do any factoring. x2 plus 2x take away 15 equals 0. Now I’m looking for two numbers whose product is -15 and whose sum is +2.

So you guys have already practiced factoring a lot you know that the numbers I’m going to want to use are +5 and -3. You know where I did that it’s kind of like Foiling in my head I would have as my outsides 5x, my insides will be -3x added together I get +2x.

Okay now I’m going to use the zero product property and write each one of these terms as equal to 0 and then solve for x to find my solutions. Add 3 to both sides and I would have x equals 3, subtract 5 from both sides and I would have x equals -5.

I think those are my solutions let me just check up top. Make sure that when you substitute in 3, 3² is 9 plus 2, 2 times 3 is 6 it should be equal to 15 good let’s test with -5. -5² is 25, -5 times 2 is -10 and I do indeed get 15 as my answer that told me I did this problem correctly. So solving by factoring what you want to do is make sure that your original problem is set equal to 0 before you do any factoring over here on your trinomial.