Can you help me, not sure where this one wants me to go, can you help me step by step? Andrew factored the expression -4x^3 +2x^2 +8x as -2x(4x^2-2x-8). But when Melissa applied the distributive law and multiplied out -2x(4x^2-2x-8), she got -8x^3+4x^2 +16x; thus, Andrew's solution does not appear to check. Why is that? Please help Andrew to understand this better. Explain your reasoning and correctly factor the original expression, if possible. If the expression is prime, so state. Walk me through it, thank you!

Question

anonymous · Answer

Andrew was correct in factoring out the -2x.  Where he introduced an error was in the quadratic factor.  He forgor th cut the coefficients in half.  The correct factorization is$$-2x(2x^{2} - x - 4)$$.

anonymous · Answer

Thanks for your help. I will have one more question to do today, then I am done. I am going to try to do it by myself, but if I need help I will come back here for it.

anonymous · Answer

Okay.  I'll keep an eye open for you.