Factoring & Expanding Expressions

Finding the GCF between all terms and "factoring" (dividing it out) of each term. *It is the reverse of the distributive property.

We factor expressions for a few reasons:

1. To easily identify the different variables and terms of the expression.

2. To solve for an unknown variable in fewer steps.

Let's start with this expression:

12a + 24

First, we need to identify the numbers that we will find the GCF of.

12a + 24: the numbers are 12 and 24.

Question 1: What is the GCF of 12 and 24?

Now that we have our simplified terms, we can't forget how we simplified them!

Always write the GCF in front of the terms!!!!

12(a + 2)

Question 2: Let's practice finding the GCF some more!

After finding the GCF, factor it out and rewrite the expression:

3s + 15 = 3(s + 5)

Question 6: Factor out this expression

4x + 8