Find the missing term so that each expression is the square of a binomial.
a)
That is the same as
and to be the square of a binomial, it would have to factor
as
since that is the same as
FOILing that out:
Comparing that to
we see that is what goes in the blank.
b)
It has to factor like this, where N is some number:
since that is the same as
FOILing that out:
Comparing that to
we know that the middle terms must be equal,
so we set them equal to each other:
Substituting in
Comparing that again to
we see that is what goes in the blank.
Edwin