SOLUTION: Please help! Factor the polynomial 3x^2 -8x -5

Question 327727: Please help! Factor the polynomial 3x^2 -8x -5
Answer by galactus(183) (Show Source): You can put this solution on YOUR website!
As is, this one is not factorable in a nice way.
If it were , then it would be (x-1)(3x-5)
But, as is, it has solutions and .
Here is a trick to tell rather or not a quadratic is factorable or not before you spend time wrestling with it and it turns out it is not factorable.
Check the discriminant. It is
You may recognize this as what is inside the parentheses in the quadratic formula.
Anyway, a=3, b=-8, c=-5

If, when you check the discrimiant, the result is not a perfect square, then it is NOT factorable. 124 is not a perfect square, so it is not factorable.
The other case I mentioned,
It has discriminant equal to 4. That is a perfect square. So it is factorable, as was shown.
Like that?.
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