Chapter 5 Polynomials and Polynomial Functions - 5.6 Find Rational Zeroes - 5.6 Exercises - Skill Practice - Page 374: 2

Sketch the function's graph

The rational zeros theorem usually provides a long list of possible zeros. In order to shorten this list as much as possible we sketch the function's graph and eliminate those possible zeros which are not around the $x$-intercepts of the graph. Then we perform the check using synthetic division only for the remaining possible zeros.