Week 7

the 800 year old Arabic book from which Algebra gets its name 'Maqalah fi al-jabr wa-al muqabalah'

Al - Jabr continues with more work on expanding and factorising algebraic expressions. It is very important to practice this work, as familiarity will bring confidence.

To expand an expression simply multiply everything inside the brackets by what is outside:

3(a + b) = 3 x a + 3 x b = 3a + 3b

- each part inside the brackets ('a' and 'b') gets multiplied by what is outside ('3').

Factorising is the reverse - we pick out the Highest Common Factor (HCF) in each part of an expression and remove that to the outside of some new brackets:

3a + 3b = 3(a + b)

- looking at '3a' and '3b' we work out that the only thing that goes into both of them evenly is '3', so we can create a new set of brackets and put the three outside.


Justin and Josh are back from Nimboida, so it is full power ahead for all class 8 maths lessons.

Click here for the next (Hammer) maths assignment which is due on Tuesday March 20th.