@Bronwyn I hate the "do what I'm thinking" things. There are often many ways things can be factored. 5*x + 3*y + 10 could be written as 5*(x+2) + 3*y. But I have no idea if that's what they were looking for there. In reality, whether you factor something or how you factor it often has to do with creating terms that can be cancelled out. You might write 5 * ( x + 2 + (3/5)*y ) if you started with ( 5*x + 3*y + 10 ) / 5. Then you could cancel out the top and bottom 5 and be left with just x + 2 + (3/5)*y. Otherwise you wouldn't do that. Without some goal like being able to factor out like that, you're shooting in the dark as to what's wanted.