Why do people dislike the F.O.I.L method in algebra?

The post above is patronising yet the one below was being pedantic, maybe even troll like and looking for a reaction or to show some form of higher dwelling....I fail to see why you would post this...



Im sure, (especially as you highlight your 'potential' in math in your sig) you have come accross the term before....

Its a simple alogorithm or acronym many in year 8/9 learn to begin with, yet it seems to have a bad rap from some posts I read

Im sure, (especially as you highlight your 'potential' in math in your sig) you have come accross the term before....

Okay well thanks for the psychoanalysis, friend

And no, I have never come across the term. If I had, I wouldn't have needed to ask

cool story brah but he speaks the truth, it's utterly pointless. The young mathematicians are being failed by little things like this, I certainly wished that I was pushed slightly harder in primary school and judging by the performance of GCSE students nationwide it looks like it would be a good idea too.

I find it quite unbelievable is that people need to learn this acronym to do it, as if by not knowing the "FOIL" order of operations they would be totally lost and have no idea what on earth to do.. it's a bracket, you multiply everything in the first one by everything in the next one.. how can people honestly need something "reminding" them what order to do it in?

I find the culture within the forum here though is driven to high achievers who spot things and think mathematically. Viewing people trying to expand double brackets at the lower end of the 'brain chain' often leads them to need simple logical step by step methods and a range of acronyms to work their way through

My question initially revolved around thinking there was an alternative method rather than arguing the semantics or requirement for an acronym, more the mathematical approach

You would be surprised. Plenty of A Level students just multiply the first terms and the last terms and the problem is significantly worse at GCSE. Expanding a pair of linear terms is a grade C skill at GCSE and it is one most 16 year olds in this country never master. Teachers actually tend to reserve FOIL for more able students (those who are capable of remembering what the letters stand for, that would probably locate them in Sets 1 and 2). They tend to draw a smiley face for less academic students.

My variation of the smiley is the parrot (once seen never forgotten) © Mr M 2010.

I always did it with a little grid box thing, with the two brackets on the top and side of the box so each 'cell' would show the product. And then just add them together. Works for whatever combination of brackets you want .



In fact I used it in my FP2 exam the other day to check my working ...

It only works for (linear)(linear) ir you've got (quadratic)(quartic) or something similar then it just wouldn't work.
May as well have a consistant method.

That's my reason anyway.

Indeed. I use grid method to introduce expanding brackets to grade C/D borderliners* before they move on to the relatively high level skill that is parrot.

* You possibly do not need this scaffolding now if you have completed FP2!

You would be surprised. Plenty of A Level students just multiply the first terms and the last terms and the problem is significantly worse at GCSE. Expanding a pair of linear terms is a grade C skill at GCSE and it is one most 16 year olds in this country never master. Teachers actually tend to reserve FOIL for more able students (those who are capable of remembering what the letters stand for, that would probably locate them in Sets 1 and 2). They tend to draw a smiley face for less academic students.

My variation of the smiley is the parrot (once seen never forgotten) © Mr M 2010.

This, whereas grid method you can multiply any number of terms inside two brackets together.

Indeed. I use grid method to introduce expanding brackets to grade C/D borderliners* before they move on to the relatively high level skill that is parrot.

* You possibly do not need this scaffolding now if you have completed FP2!

Now THAT is something I want on a t-shirt

Surely the most intuitive, easy, basic way would be to split the bracket as:

$(a+b)(x+y) = a(x+y) + b(x+y)$

while explaining that "if you have a plus b of x+y, then you have a of x+y [and draw the a(x+y)] as well as b of x+y [and draw the b(x+y)].

I'm not going to argue with your knowledge, because you've been teaching maths probably longer than I've even been alive and as such know what "works" for those who don't have much intuition.. but that seems like the most basic way I can possibly think of it