How do you expand brackets?

Let's have a look at a pair of brackets: (a+b)(c+d)To expand these brackets each value in one bracket must be multiplied by all values in the other bracket separately then added together. So we have: ac+ad+bc+bd *Using this formula we can look at more specific examples: (x+3)(2x+1)Now let a=x b=3 c=2x d=1 then substituting into * we have 2x2+x+6x+3 Which we must simplify to 2x2+7x+3

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Answered by Phoebe B. Maths tutor

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