How do you factor the expression $x^2 + 4x + 3$ ?

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Answer 1 · 2016-08-14T06:05:45

Both the middle term and constant terms are positive, so the factors are both $x bb(color(red)(+)) c$ .
The only factors of $3$ are $1$ and $3$ .
Because of the way you expand factored quadratics (first, outer, inner, last), the factors of the constant term add together to give the middle term's coefficient when a quadratic is factorable.

Therefore, this becomes $color(blue)((x+1)(x+3))$ .

How do you factor the expression x^2 + 4x + 3 x^2 + 4x + 3?