How will you approach the simplification of this expression?

Question

What will you do to simplify x^2/x-1 - x^2/x+1 - 1/x-1 +1/x+1 , what will be the first step? Finding LCD or is there anything else that could be done? Thanks million for any input.

Answer 1

The first thing to do is to collect together terms with the same denominator:

x^2/(x-1)-1/(x-1) - x^2/(x+1)+1/(x+1).

Next, combine the numerators: (x^2-1)/(x-1) - (x^2-1)/(x+1).

The denominator divides into the numerator because x^2-1=(x-1)(x+1);

x+1-(x-1)=x+1-x+1=2, so the expression simplifies to just 2.

Comments

@Rod Thank you so much, this is a great answer :) xx