Re: help on hard maths question!!! i really need help espc GCSE year!

Brian Reay wrote:
"Robert Low" <mtx014@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in message
Brian Reay wrote:
Seems to get good results- it is methodical and (on a whiteboard but not usenet!) easy to teach.
And how do they cope when the roots aren't integers?
Do you have a way to find non-integer roots via some other factorisation technique that is teachable at this level? 

No. My point (such as it is) is that factorisation is a
rather artificial technique that only works in very
carefully selected cases. Rather than labour such
a special case, I'd prefer to get them to understand
completing the square, and do factorisation once
they're capable of solving the general problem.

And now that I think about it, I'd also put effort
into making very sure that they realise that
if the factors are (x+a) and (x+b), then the
roots are -a  and -b, not a and b.

But then, it's a long time since I taught anybody
to solve a quadratic---mostly these days I complain
about how they can't already do it :-/
.