[Math] Can synthetic division and long division of polynomials provide different answers

polynomials

I was answering synthetic division example questions and decided to answer it using long division too. The problem is the answers are different.

$$\dfrac{3x^3 – 5x^2 – x + 2} {3x + 1}\tag{1}$$


Synthetic division answer: $3x^2 – 6x + 6$

Long division answer : $x^2 – 2x + 2$

I've thought of dividing $3x^2 – 6x + 6$ by $3$ to give the same answer but I'm not sure if you could do that.

Thanks in advance

Best Answer

You just forgot a step. You need to divide by 3 because when you used synthetic division, you solved for $\dfrac{(3x^3-5x^2-x+2)}{(x+1/3)}$ using synthetic division, you have to remember the factor of $3$, so rewrite it as

$\dfrac{(3x^3-5x^2-x+2)}{(x+1/3)} \times \dfrac{1}{3}$ then you can just use it and then divide that answer by $3$.