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Editorial Team
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Asked: 2026-05-27T14:59:53+00:00

I’m writing a small app in python which lets users answer math questions. The

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I’m writing a small app in python which lets users answer math questions. The problem I’m having is checking their answers.

Say there’s a question like: “Factorise x^2 + 3x +2“

There are different ways to answer this; for example:

  • (x + 1)(x + 2)
  • (x + 2)(x + 1)
  • (2 + x)(x + 1)
  • etc.

Is there a library which will check if an answer is equivalent to another? Particularly one which doesn’t simplify the given answer; so:

(x + 1)(x + 2) === (2 + x)(x + 1)

But

(x + 1)(x + 2) !== x^2 + 3x +2

I thought about using wolframalpha for this — would this be possible — and if so what syntax should I use?

Thanks!

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1 Answer

  1. Editorial Team

    You could try using a symbolic math library like sympy.

    Call the simplify logic on both your answer and the one supplied by the user. Running the logic on both addresses this issue noted in the documentation:

    exact strategies this function tries can change in the future versions
    of SymPy

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