Parabolas. Learning to Graph Them From The Equation. Getting The Equation From The Graph.

Axis of Symmetry: A line on which a graph is reflected onto itself.

Completing the Square: Method that finds the constant term in an incomplete perfect square trinomial of a second degree equation to solve it.

Conic section: A figure that is obtained slicing a double cone with a plane. (parabola, circle, hyperbola, and ellipse)

Factoring: The process to brake a polynomial down into the product of several factors.

Factors: All whole numbers that are multiplied together to yield another number.

Factored Form: Any polynomial that is written as the product of polynomials of lower degree that may be obtained from the original polynomial.

Function: A relation of the type that has exactly one value in the domain (independent variable) matching a value in the range (dependent variable).

Function notation: A function written with the symbol f(x) instead of y. It is read as f of x.

Parabola: The u curved shape you get when graphing a quadratic equation.

Quadratic equation: An equation of the form

ax2 + bx + c = 0 where a, b, and c are real numbers and a is different from zero.

Quadratic formula: If ax2 + bx + c =0 and a is different from zero then the quadratic formula is given in terms of a, b, and c.

Quadratic function: Any function in the form of

f(x) = ax2 + bx + c where a is different from zero. The graph is a parabola and the largest exponent is 2.

Vertex: The lowest point for a parabola that opens up (minimum); the highest point for a parabola that opens down (maximum).

Vertex form of a quadratic function: The vertex form of a quadratic function is: f(x) = a(x-h)2 + k. The vertex coordinates are (h,k).