Introduction

You have studied algebraic expressions, their addition, subtraction, multiplication and division in earlier classes. You also have studied how to factorise some algebraic expressions. You may recall the algebraic identities:

x+y2 = x2+2xy+y2x2−2xy+y2

x−y2 = x2−2xy+y2x+yx−y

x2−y2 = x+yx−y2x+y2x−yx−yx−y

and their use in factorisation.

In this chapter, we shall start our study with a particular type of algebraic expression, called polynomial, and the terminology related to it. We shall also study the Remainder Theorem and Factor Theorem and their use in the factorisation of polynomials. In addition to the above, we shall study some more algebraic identities and their use in factorisation and in evaluating some given expressions.