Question

How do I solve this?

Answer 1

I’m assuming what you’re asking here is how to *factor* this expression. For that, let’s rearrange the expression into a more familiar form:

-c^2-4c+21

From here, we’ll factor out a -1 so that we have:

-(c^2+4c-21)

Let’s focus on the quadratic expression inside the parentheses. To find our factors (c + x)(c + y), we’ll need to find two terms x and y that multiply together to make -21 and add together to make 4. It turns out that the numbers -3 and 7 work out perfectly for that purpose (-3 x 7 = -21 and 7 + (-3) = 4), so substituting them in for x and y, we have:

(c + (-3))(c + 7)
(c - 3)(c + 7)

And adding back on the negative from a few steps earlier:

-(c - 3)(c + 7)