Week 13 – Math 11 | Michaela's Blog

This week in math, we learned how to simplify rational expressions.

Example:

$\frac{4x^{2}+28x+48}{2x^{2}+2x+12}$

First we need to see if there are any numbers that we can pull out of the expressions. Here, we pull out 4 from the top and 2 from the bottom.

$\frac{4\left ( x^{2}+7x+12 \right )}{2\left ( x^{2}+5x+6 \right )}$

Next, we factor the expressions.

$\frac{4\left ( x+3 \right )\left ( x+4 \right )}{2\left ( x+3 \right )\left ( x+2 \right )}$

Then, we cancel out any similarities. Here, we canceled out (x+3) from the top and bottom. We also simplify 4 over 2 to 2 over. 1

$\frac{2\left ( x+4 \right )}{1\left ( x+2 \right )}$

And now we have our answer!

Michaela’s Blog