Question

Louise completed the work shown below.(5x3 3)2 = (5x3)2 (3)2 = 25x6 9determine if louise’s answer is correct. explain.

Answer 1

Let us first assume that the operator between 5x^3 and 3 is addition. What Louise did was incorrect, as she did not follow the proper way of expanding a binomial. The actual steps to take when taking the square of a binomial is as follows:

(5x^3 + 3)^2 = (5x^3 + 3)(5x^3 + 3)
25x^6 + 15x^3 + 15x^3 + 9
25x^6 + 30x^3 + 9

The actual answer is  25x^6 + 30x^3 + 9.

Answer 2

Louise’s answer is not correct. She is missing the term 30x3. When squaring a binomial, it is best to write the product of the binomial times itself. Then you can use the distributive property to multiply each term in the first binomial by each term in the second binomial. Louise also could have used the formula for a perfect square trinomial, which is found by squaring a binomial.