Question

How do you simplify `\frac { x ^ { 2} - 3x - 28} { x - 7}`?

Answer 1

`x + 4`

Explanation:

Step 1) Factor the quadratic equation in the numerator by playing with factors of 28, (May want to try `-7 xx +4` seeing as how the denominator has a factor of `-7` in it):

`((x - 7)(x + 4))/(x - 7)`

We can now cancel like terms in the numerator and denominator to get our final simplification:

`(cancel((x - 7))(x + 4))/cancel((x - 7))`

`x + 4`