Over the majority of the second semester, math class has been focused mainly around the topic of quadratics. We've gone over 25 handouts to help us better understand quadratics, starting with distance, velocity, and acceleration practice problems (handout #1). This handout kicked off the entire problem. Handouts 4-6 were all focused on parabolas, and handout 7 introduced vertex form. Parabolas and vertex form led us to figure out where the vertex is just looking at the equation and and where it crosses the axis which was on handouts 8 and 9.
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For this section, I'm choosing a handout I felt like I learned the most from and felt the most comfortable with. The handout I chose is #14 - "Square It." For this handout, we were shown how the quadratic function was written and then how to find the vertex without any computation. The paper also showed what standard form looks like and how to convert them. What we had to do was use an area diagram to solve a series of expressions and turn them into standard form.
For question 1 a, I had to turn (x + 3)^2 into standard form. There's a drawing of the area diagram I used in the image posted, but I tend to use F.O.I.L more often than the area diagram. Before you F.O.I.L, you have to factor out (x +3)^2 into (x + 3)(x + 3). After the F.O.I.L'ing process is done, you end up with x^2 + 3x + 3x + 9. The next step is to combine like terms which is now x^2 + 6x + 9. B, C, and D are solved the same way. |