Operations with Polynomials (Cambridge (CIE) O Level Additional Maths): Revision Note

Expanding Brackets

What is a polynomial?

• A polynomial is an algebraic expression consisting of a finite number of terms, with non-negative integer indices only

What do I need to know about expanding brackets?

• Expanding brackets is now extended to include

  • brackets with more than 2 terms

  • brackets that are polynomials (beyond linear)

• To expand two brackets, each term in the first set of brackets must be multiplied by each term in the second set of brackets

  • If there are more than 2 brackets to expand, only work with a pair at a time 

  • You may have seen or used FOIL to expand quadratic expressions

    • that is helpful but is a special case (shortcut) of this more general approach 

• If you are trying to expand a two term bracket to a higher power (i.e. ) then use the binomial expansion