How do you simplify (x^2 + 4x +4)/(x^2 + 7x +10) *( x^2 + 5x)/(x^2 + 6x + 8 )?

1 Answer
Jul 23, 2015

You first factorise and see what you can cancel

Explanation:

=((x+2)^2)/((x+2)(x+5))*(x(x+5))/((x+2)(x+4))

We first note the restrictions x!=-2andx!=-4andx!=-5
as this would make denominator(s) =0

Now we can cancel:

=(cancel((x+2))(x+2))/(cancel((x+2))(x+5))*(x(x+5))/((x+2)(x+4))

=(xcancel((x+2))cancel((x+5)))/(cancel((x+2))(x+4)cancel((x+5)))

=x/(x+4)