From: Don Bellairs <bellairsd@yahoo.com>
To: Teacher2Teacher Public Discussion
Date: 2007071212:05:27
Subject: discriminants and roots?

	
Please excuse my neediness: I am an English teacher/counselor making
ends meet by tutoring a graduating HS senior.  We are stuck on some
math stuff and I don't know how to research it...Found your site.

Briefly, 3 questions:

Why does a quadratic equation have one soution if the discriminant is
zero.  I don't know how to explain that.

What does a parabola with 2 x-intercepts look like in equation form?

For which value of k does kx2 - 10x + 25k = 0     -1, 2, 3, 5 or 10?

Thanks.  We are finishing a college prep course and I can't explain
these questions...

Also, our text book refers to "roots" sometimes and "solutions" at
others.  Are these interchangeable terms?

Thanks,
Don

Post a reply to this message
Post a related public discussion message
Ask Teacher2Teacher a new question