Expert: Richard J. Raridon - 2/20/2005

Question
I understand what you did to the previous cubed power with grouping, but you can't use that for factoring:
x^3+x^2+x-3.
So how would you factor something like that.(I know the answer is x^2 + 2x+3, but I want to know how to get it.)
I appreciate your time that you take out to answer these questions.Thank you so much.

Answer
The trick is to find one factor.  Write it
f(x) = x^3 +x^2 +x -3
then put in values of x until you find one such that
f(x) = 0
In this case, x=1 is a solution so you know that x-1 is one factor.  Just divide that into x^3 +x^2 +x -3 and you get your answer.  If you don't know how to divide, ask your teacher.