Today on Twitter, Mr. Allen requested some good problem-solving resources for quadratics. He made up one himself.

UPDATE – I created my own 👍👍 pic.twitter.com/KawrefJ9k2

— Mr Allen (@MrAllen_EHU) June 10, 2019

I decided to make one as well. It is similar to my other Find the Factors puzzles. You will have to use logic to solve it, but in many ways, it will be easier to solve than most of my regular puzzles. Like always, there is only one solution.

Print the puzzles or type the solution in this excel file: 12 Factors 1389-1403

Every term is positive so if you already know how to factor trinomials it should be relatively easy to solve. All the factors from (x + 1) to (x + 9) need to appear exactly one time in both the first column and the top row of the puzzle.  Once all the factors are found, the puzzle is solved, but you can find all the products of those factors and write them in the body of the puzzle if you want.

Since this is my 1389th post, here’s a little bit about that number:

• 1389 is a composite number.
• Prime factorization: 1389 = 3 × 463
• 1389 has no exponents greater than 1 in its prime factorization, so √1389 cannot be simplified.
• The exponents in the prime factorization are 1, and 1. Adding one to each exponent and multiplying we get (1 + 1)(1 + 1) = 2 × 2 = 4. Therefore 1389 has exactly 4 factors.
• The factors of 1389 are outlined with their factor pair partners in the graphic below.

1389 is the difference of two squares in two different ways:
695² – 694² = 1389
233² – 230² = 1389