Question 550669: Which part of the quadratic formula tells you whether the quadratic equation can be solved by factoring?
-b b2 - 4ac 2a
Use the part of the quadratic formula that you chose above and find its value given the following quadratic equation:
2x2 + 7x + 3 = 0
Answer by KMST(5328)   (Show Source):
You can put this solution on YOUR website! The expression  Is called the discriminant. If it is zero, or positive and a perfect square (like 4, 9, 25, 36, etc), the solutions to the quadratic equation will be rational numbers and factoring will work.
On the other hand, if the discriminant is positive but not a perfect square, the solutions will be irrational, and if it is negative, there are no real solutions. In either of those cases, the quadratic expression cannot be factored.
In the equation  , the discriminant is
That means that the solutions can be found by factoring.
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