Question

factor into distributive property:
3x^2-21x-54

Answer 1

using the distributive property means there is a factor common to each term so you can rewrite the original with factors
as an example if we have the term 12p we can write 12 as 4*3 so 12p can be written as 4(3p) when we have 12p + 6 we consider is anything in common with 12 and 6? yes 6 so we will have 6(2p + 1) for your problem the common factor is 3 to get
3(x^2 -7x - 18).
later you will see that x^2 -7x -18 is a quadratic expression and that can be factored.
(x-9)(x+2) like in my first example of 12p = 4(3p) the 4 can be written as 2*2 so the 12p can be written as 2*2*3p same principle
Factors are what you multiply together to get the original product.