Please factorise fully: 2a^2 + 6a
We are factorising 2a2 +6a. When we factorise an expression, we look for common terms that we can place outside of a bracket. Another way of thinking about this is something that both 2a2 and 6a can be divided with.Both 2a2 and 6a can be divided by a, as 2a2/a = 2a and 6a/a = 6. In addition, both 2a^2 and 6a can be divided by 2.Thus we can place 2a outside the bracket, as follows:2a(a +3)Just to check that this factorisation is correct, we will multiply out the brackets as shown below:(2a . a)+(2a . 3) = 2a2 + 6a
