Week Five - Taite 20th Mei

Today we looked at factorising by finding the highest common factor (HCF).

The HCF is a number that is the highest factor of both numbers. Example:

• factors of 4 are {1,2,4} since 4 = 1 x 4 and 2 x 2
• factors of 12 are {1,2,3,4,6,12} since 12 = 1 x 12 and 2 x 6 and 3 x 4
• So the HCF of 4 and 12 must be 4

To factorise we put the highest common factor first, and then find the missing parts.
e.g factorising 4x + 12 gives
4(x + 3) since 4 times x gives 4x and 4 times 3 gives 12.

For extra help with HCFs see homework exercise 1.02

Homework: 9.05 so 9.01 - 9.05 is due tomorrow.