When should a quadratic be solved by factoring?

Question

dsea · Answer

When should a quadratic be solved by factoring?  

When should a quadratic be solved by the quadratic formula? 

When should a quadratic be solved by completing the square? 

When should a quadratic be solved by square root?

calculusxy · Answer

Check this website out which has the answer to the questions you need help with. They couldn't have said it better: http://mathbitsnotebook.com/Algebra1/Quadratics/QDWhichMethod.html

jess_123 · Answer

@-StudyWith-

-studywith- · Answer

You would only factor when the quadratic equation has polynomials: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IKyUuvulIbk

onirankensei · Answer

A quadratic equation should be solved by factoring when you're asked explicitly to solve it by factoring or when the quadratic is easily solved by factoring. 

What I mean by that, is that you should probably solve by factoring when its factors jump at you. For example, it's easy to see that the factors of $$x^{2}-5x+6$$ are $$(x - 3)(x - 2)$$.

Solving by completing the square is useful for manipulating the equation to change its form, but I would recommend to avoid solving by completing the square as a last option since there are a couple of more steps involved, which leads it to be error prone.

Solving by completing the square should be used when explicitly asked to solve by completing the square or when you need to manipulate the equation to find other information, such as the vertex or the maximum/minimum value, or when finding the directrix.

Solving by square room should be used when it's in the form there isn't an x term. What I mean by this, is that when the $$x ^{2}$$ term can be moved to one side of the equation and the constant by itself. 

Solving by using the quadratic equation should probably be used if the equation is not easily factorable and it isn't in a neat form where you can solve it by solving square root.