Question 623948: list the terms, coefficients, and degree of the following polynomial: -3x^6-7x^3+4x+3/7
Answer by Theo(13342)   (Show Source):
You can put this solution on YOUR website! -3x^6-7x^3+4x+3/7
number of terms is 4
each term is separated from each other term by a + sign or a - sign.
separated out, this expression looks like this:
(-3x^6) - (7x^3) + (4x) + (3/7)
the highest exponent is 6 so the degree of the expression is 6.
the coefficients of the expression are:
-3, 7, 4
-3 is the coefficient of x^6
7 is the coefficient of x^3
4 is the coefficient of x
the constant term is (3/7)
note that the constant term can also be viewed as (3/7)*x^0 because x^0 is equivalent to 1 and (3/7)*1 is equivalent to (3/7).
if you look at it that way, then the constant term of (3/7) could also be considered a coefficient of the x^0.
i would just call it a constant term unless somebody you need to answer to is a stickler for details like that.
note that if there were 2 variables in the expression, then the degree of the expression would be the term with the highest sum of exponents.
example:
x^6y^3 term has a degree of 6+3 = 9
since you're only dealing with x, that fact doesn't come into the picture.
here's a reference on degrees of a polynomial.
http://www.basic-mathematics.com/degree-of-a-polynomial.html
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