SOLUTION: Question #1 The expression is: u^2-12u+___ The challenge is to "Fill in the expression to make a perfect sqare" Can you help me? (the ^ is for the power)

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Question 552067: Question #1
The expression is: u^2-12u+___
The challenge is to "Fill in the expression to make a perfect sqare"
Can you help me?
(the ^ is for the power)
Answer by neatmath(302) (Show Source):
You can put this solution on YOUR website!

When you are making perfect squares,

the easy way is just to take HALF of the value of the middle term,

and then square it.

Half of -12 is -6.

-6 squared is 36.

The expression should then be:

And if we continue, then we can see that this can be factored as:

or even more simply written as

which is WHY we do this. :)

Of course, this only works when the coefficient for the term is 1, so be careful when trying this with trickier expressions.

There's a LOT more to it, but this is the basic info you need to answer the question.

I hope this helps! :)

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