You can put this solution on YOUR website! Since this is a quadratic equation, let's see if we can factor the equation to determine the value of p, since factoring is generally the easiest. The first thing we can do is factor out a 3, since all of the numbers in the equation are divisible by 3:
We can discard the 3, since 3 does not equal 0. This leaves us with
Since 3 has only 2 factors: 3 and 1 (or -3 and -1) and -2 only has two factors: -2 and 1 (or 2 and -1), we can easily factor this equation:
Now that we've factored, we can set each factor to 0 and solve for p:
3p + 1 = 0 ----->
3p = -1 ----->
p = -1/3
AND
p - 2 = 0 ----->
p = 2
We can verify each value by replacing p with each value in the original equation. We will see both values, when replacing for p, give us 0. So
