So, what’s a quadratic equation? Let’s split the term: “Quadratic” + “Equation”.Quadratic has something to do with a square(polygon which has 4 sides,called a quadrilateral) and equation is something where we see an “equal to(=)” sign.Coming back to quadratic , it is where we see the x² term(or the square any other variable).
The general form of any quadratic equation is ax² + bx +c = 0,where a,b,c are real numbers and a≠0.
Now,the next thing you need to know is “solving” or “finding the roots” of a quadratic equation.It means to find the value of the variable which satifies the given equation.We can solve the quadratic equation by three methods:
i) Splitting the middle term or Factorisation,
ii)Completing the square,
iii)Quadratic formula
Splitting the middle term is a basic method where you, as the phrase suggests : split the middle term ; namely the ‘x’ term. The first step involves finding two numbers whose product is equal to ‘ac’ (The sign is important) and whose sum is ‘b’.Then we can write the quadratic expression (i.e.the left hand side of the equation) as the product of two terms (x+p) (x+q) where p and q are the two numbers which we find.Hence,the roots will be -p and -q since they will make the left hand side equal to zero.