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Example Question #1 : Finding Zeros Of A Polynomial
Find the zeros of the following polynomial:
Possible Answers:
Correct answer:
Explanation:
First, we need to find all the possible rational roots of the polynomial using the Rational Roots Theorem:
Since the leading coefficient is just 1, we have the following possible (rational) roots to try:
±1, ±2, ±3, ±4, ±6, ±12, ±24
When we substitute one of these numbers for
, we're hoping that the equation ends up equaling zero. Let's see if is a zero:
Since the function equals zero when
is , one of the factors of the polynomial is . This doesn't help us find the other factors, however. We can use synthetic substitution as a shorter way than long division to factor the equation.
Now we can factor the function this way:
We repeat this process, using the Rational Roots Theorem with the second term to find a possible zero. Let's try
:
When we factor using synthetic substitution for
, we get the following result:
Using our quadratic factoring rules, we can factor completely:
Thus, the zeroes of
are
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