A book sold 36100 copies in its first month of release. Suppose this represent 6.1% of the number of copies sold to date. How many copies have been sold to date? Round your answer to the nearest whole number?

Hi there!

We can use long division to find the other roots of p(x).

We know that x + 1 is a factor, so:

Set up:

Find how many times that the first term in the divisor goes into the first of the dividend. Subtract from like terms.

         x² - x - 6

x + 1 | x³ + 0x² - 7x - 6

         x³ + x²

         0 - x²     - 7x

            - x²      - x

             0        - 6x - 6

                        -6x - 6

                          0     0

Therefore, x² - x - 6 is another factor. We can factor this further:

Find two numbers that add up to -1 and multiply into -6. We get:

-3, 2

(x - 3)(x + 2)

The entire polynomial factored is:

(x -3)(x + 2)(x + 1)