Question

Please Help
I'm about to start a test over finding the greatest common factor of monomials and i was wandering if anyone could help me

Answer 1

Find the greatest common factor of the following monomials : \[48b ^{2}\] \[21b\]

Answer 2

Is this question from your test ?

Answer 3

yes

Answer 4

Isn't it against your school policy to take help from others during a test ?

Answer 5

No, its credit recovery. Since it is all online and we don't have a teacher to help us or teach us they encourage us to find all the help we can.

Answer 6

so no one teaches it to you at all? wow...

Answer 7

Fair enough, I can teach you these, one moment please

Answer 8

There is a lesson we can read through but it doesnt make sense to me. I am really bad at algebra

Answer 9

\[\color{blue}{48}b ^{2}\]
\[\color{blue}{21}b\]

Answer 10

Step1 :
Deal with the friendly numbers 48 and 21

Answer 11

Can you factor 48 ?

Answer 12

1, 2, 3, 4, 6, 8, 12, 16, 24, 48
is that what you mean?

Answer 13

"factor" is just a fancy word
it simply asks you to write 48 as 2*24

Answer 14

Notice that 2*24 equals 48

Answer 15

But why stop there
when we can factor 24 further and write it as 2*12

Answer 16

48 = 2*24
= 2*2*12

Answer 17

can we factor that 12 again ?

Answer 18

\[2\times6\] ?

Answer 19

Awesome! who said you're bad at arithmetic/algebra ?

48 = 2*24
= 2*2*12
= 2*2*2*6

Answer 20

you can guess what we're gona do next
why leave 6 like that, factor it too

Answer 21

\[2\times3\]

Answer 22

48 = 2*24
= 2*2*12
= 2*2*2*6
= 2*2*2*2*3

Answer 23

see if you're happy with below :
\[\color{blue}{48}b ^{2} = 2*2*2*2*3*b*b\]

Answer 24

I've just replaced 48 by our factored form
and \(b^2\) by \(b*b\)

easy peasy so far

Answer 25

I understand so far

Answer 26

@ganeshie8

Answer 27

Excellent! let's do the exact same thing to the other monomial \(\color{blue}{21}b\)

Answer 28

Can you factor 21 ?

Answer 29

I'm not sure if this is right but i know it equals 21. .

\[3\times7\]

Answer 30

Perfect!

\[\color{blue}{21}b = \color{blue}{3*7*b}\]

Answer 31

Now comes the tricky part

Answer 32

We're ready to eyeball the greatest common factor

Answer 33

3?

Answer 34

3b*

Answer 35

\[\color{blue}{48}b ^{2} = \color{blue}{2*2*2*2*3}*b*b\]
\[\color{blue}{21}b = \color{blue}{3*7}*b\]

Answer 36

That's it! very good job in figuring that out!

\(\color{blue}{3}\) is common from numbers
\(b\) is common from variables

so \(\color{blue}{3}b\) is the greatest common factor here

Answer 37

Thank you so much

Answer 38

yw

Answer 39

\(\text{If you're done with the question, don't forget to close it}\) ☺

Answer 40

& good luck on your credit recovery! ♣