Raj writes a polynomial expression in standard form using one variable, a, that has 4 terms and is degree 5. Nicole writes a polynomial expression in standard form using one variable, a, that has 3 terms and is degree 2. Raj and Nicole’s polynomial expressions are added to create a sum, written in standard form.

Question

What can you determine about the degree of the sum?

The sum will be degree_____

What can you determine about the number of terms of the sum?

The maximum number of terms of the sum is ___ but it could be less.

Answer 1

The degree of the sum will be the highest degree of the two polynomials, which is 5. Therefore, the sum will be degree 5.

The number of terms in the sum will be the sum of the number of terms in each polynomial, so the maximum number of terms in the sum is 4 + 3 = 7, but it could be less depending on the specific terms in each polynomial.