Sunday, January 23, 2011

Can someone explain WHEN to use FOIL? And I don't understand what is the difference in using FOIL and the distributive one.

4 comments:

  1. It actually doesn't matter which method you use. You can use FOIL, the distributive property or the Punnett square method. Foil stands for first, outer, inner, last. Here is and example:

    (x+4)(2+x)
    First - x and 3
    Outer- x and the other x
    Inner- 4 and 2
    Last 4 and the last x

    You multiply all of those terms.

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  2. Also, in case you wanted to know and if you forgot, the way you do this process backwards is that you take the first and last terms, (f) and (l) in foil, or the quadratic and the constant, and factor them.

    Example 1:

    2x^2+6x+4
    (2x+2)(x+2)

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  3. Okay, so I kind of get the mechanics now, but why do we have to do this stuff? What does it mean? How is going to help me solve any problems in the Real World?

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