Completing the Square

You will need to be fully

competent at “multiplying
out brackets” before
attempting to understand
this skill.
Start by multiplying out the
brackets

( x  7)( x  3)
To obtain :

x  4 x  21
2

In ‘complete square’ form you need

all the ‘x’ terms inside a ‘squared bracket’
like this . . .
( x  p)  q 2
The first step is to “halve the
coefficient of x” (to get ‘p’)

x  4 x  21
2

Half of +4 is 2 and so :

( x  p)  q 2

Becomes . . . . .

( x  2)  q 2
The hard part is finding ‘q’ and
this is best done by comparing
the 2 forms:

( x  2)  q  x  4 x  21
2 2

L.H .S .  ( x  2)( x  2)  q
 x2  4x  4  q
Comparing this to the R.H.S. it is easy to see that :

4  q   21
GIVING . . . . q   25
We now have the
‘completed square form’ :

x  4 x  21  ( x  2)  25
2 2

But don’t take my word for it . . . . Multiply out the bracket

on the right and CHECK that you get the same as on the left!