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How To Understand Completing The Square

Education : Maths

It is not immediately obvious what this term means, or when to use it.

The answer is: it is used in algebra to solve a quadratic equation. It is used when the equation will not factorise (be expressed as a pair of brackets).

To do this, you simply express the expression as a square, plus another term.

Here's an example:
x^2 + 10x

This becomes:
(x + 5)^2 - 25

How to work it out? To find the number, follow this easy step:
Divide the coefficient of x by 2 then square, and take this away outside the equation.


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By: Chris

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