Factoring a Perfect Square Trinomial 64x 2 - 16x + 1 ( 8x) 2 (8x - 1) 2 Is the first term a perfect square? Is the last term a perfect square? Is the middle term twice the product of 8 and 1? 1 Check your Self (8x-1) (8x-1) FOIL (8x) 2 - 8x - 8x +(-1)-1 64x2 -16x +1 YES
Factoring a Difference of Two Squares 25x 2 - 49 25x 2 -49 = (5x) 2 - 7 2 Find your perfect squares = (5x + 7) (5x – 7) = 25x 2 - 49