Читать книгу SAT Math For Dummies with Online Practice - Mark Zegarelli - Страница 65

A polynomial with a single variable (x) is any expression of the following form:

This eye-glazing definition becomes a lot clearer when you see a few sample polynomials:

As you can see, each term in a polynomial is built from a variable (usually x) raised to any non-negative exponent and then multiplied by a coefficient, with terms either added or subtracted.

For clarity, polynomials are usually written in standard form, starting with the term that has the greatest exponent of x and in descending order down to the term that has the least exponent. (Note that the constant term of a polynomial technically has an exponent of 0, so it appears as the last term of a polynomial in standard form.)