Expanding brackets

Multiply everything in one bracket by everything in the other, then tidy up. About 7 minutes, GCSE.

What you will do

  1. Why expand?. 2(x + 4) means 2 lots of (x + 4). Expanding removes the brackets: 2x + 8.
  2. Two brackets. Every term in the first bracket multiplies every term in the second. Some people remember it as FOIL: First, Outer, Inner, Last.
  3. Watch the signs. A negative times a negative is positive. A negative times a positive is negative. Most slips happen here.
  4. Then collect like terms. After multiplying, add together the terms that have the same letter and power, like 3x and 5x.

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