ok please help again?

Question

What is the greatest common factor of -3a6 - 4a5 - a4?
A) a4

B) -a4

C) Both A and B

D) Neither A nor B

Answer 1

It would be B)

because,

factor out -a^4 and you get
-a^4(3a^2+4a+1) which cannot be further simplified unless you factor it

if it was A, a^4, you could still take out a -1

Answer 2

The greatest common factor is the number which can be divided into all terms with the smallest dividend for each term. I personally would factor out a -a4 to yield -a4(3a2 - 4a - 1). Although positive numbers are greater than negative numbers, we don't know what "a" is so the opposite of a could be positive or negative. I would argue that the answer is C.

Answer 3

Hi,

Notice for this problem that the expression you were given has a common factor of -a^4 that can be taken out of the expression. Therefore that's the MOST that can be taken out when factoring. However, a^4 is also correct because you can also decide to leave the negative one in the expression itself when factoring. [i.e. it doesn't make a difference when factoring whether you take out the negative or leave it in the problem]

Therefore: C is the correct answer

I hope that helps you out! Please let me know if you have any other questions!

Sincerely,

Andrew

Answer 4

a^4 and -a^4 are both common factors of all three terms, but a^4 > -a^4 so a^4 is the answer = A

Answer 5

Hi,

C is correct because you could divide out either a^4 or -1a^4 as your GCF.

I hope that helps!! :-)