What is the answer when you factorise 12x add 4?

Answer 1

16

Answer 2

When ever you have terms (which 12x and 4 are both terms) you need to break them down into prime numbers that when multiplied equal back to the original number.

Such as this:

3 • 2 • 2 • x + 2 • 2 • 1

Now we're looking for the greatest common factor (GCF). We find this by looking at both sides of the broken down terms. What variables or coefficients are the same for both sides? You can make this easier by underlining those same numbers.

3 • 2 • 2 • x + 2 • 2 • 1

We now see that 2 x 2 is the same on both sides. So this means our GCF is 4.

You can go ahead and write the 4 down.

Finally we go back and take a look at the remainder of the stuff that is left over.

3 • x + 1

We're left with 3 • x + 1 or 3x + 1. This goes into parentheses and we take our GCF and write it outside the left over numbers.

4(3x + 1)

This is our factored problem for 12x + 4 = 4(3x+1).

If you'd like to check your work simply use the distributive property a(x+b) = (ax+ab) and it should result in your original problem.

4(3x + 1) = (3x•4 + 1•4) = 12x + 4.