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Algebraic HCF

Exercises providing practice finding the highest common factor of algebraic expressions.

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This is level 5: Attempt to find the expression for the HCF of the expressions below exactly as they appeared in the answer section of the old textbook. Clue: For some questions it may help to know that \(x+y\) is a factor of \(x^3+y^3\).

Exercise from old textbookExcerpt from A First Book in Algebra by Wallace C. Boyden 1895.

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This is Algebraic HCF level 5. You can also try:
Level 1 Level 2 Level 3 Level 4

Instructions

Try your best to answer the questions above. Type your answers into the boxes provided leaving no spaces. As you work through the exercise regularly click the "check" button. If you have any wrong answers, do your best to do corrections but if there is anything you don't understand, please ask your teacher for help.

When you have got all of the questions correct you may want to print out this page and paste it into your exercise book. If you keep your work in an ePortfolio you could take a screen shot of your answers and paste that into your Maths file.

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"My year five children look forward to their daily challenge and enjoy the problems as much as I do. A great resource - thanks a million."

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"An absolutely brilliant resource. Only recently been discovered but is used daily with all my classes. It is particularly useful when things can be saved for further use. Thank you!"

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Description of Levels

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Numeric HCF - Begin with the basics; practise finding the HCF of pairs of numbers

Level 1 - Expressions such as: 3c² and 9c

Level 2 - Expressions such as: 4x²y and 8xy³

Level 3 - Expressions with 3 variables and 3 terms

Level 4 - Exercise from an old textbook

Level 5 - More advanced exercise from an old textbook

Algebraic LCM - A very similar exercise that can be used to practise finding the LCM of pairs of expressions

More on Factors including lesson Starters, visual aids, investigations and self-marking exercises.

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Curriculum Reference

See the National Curriculum page for links to related online activities and resources.

Help

To type an index or power us the caret symbol ^

Before beginning this Algebraic HCF exercise you should have mastered
the numeric HCF Exercise.

 

The video above is from @MarkWillisMaths

Don't wait until you have finished the exercise before you click on the 'Check' button. Click it often as you work through the questions to see if you are answering them correctly. You can double-click the 'Check' button to make it float at the bottom of your screen.

Answers to this exercise are available lower down this page when you are logged in to your Transum account. If you don’t yet have a Transum subscription one can be very quickly set up if you are a teacher, tutor or parent.

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