Expand the following (x+4)(x+2)
The most important thing to remember when expanding brackets is to make sure that all terms in the one brackets have been multiplied with all the terms in the other.In this case we have two terms in each bracket which means that when we expand the brackets we will have 4 separate terms. This can be shown by drawing lines from term to term in the bracket.By working from left to right we can ensure that our working is clear and we have less chance of making a silly mistakeSo firstly we multiply x by x to get x2 which is our first term. Now we multiply x by 2 to get 2x followed by multiplying 4 and x to get 4x. Finally we multiply 4 by 2 to get 8.Now our result is x2 + 2x + 4x + 8. We notice that 2x and 4x are what we call 'like terms' so we can add them together to get 6x which will simplify our previous answer to getx2 + 6x + 8
