Question

Not sure on this one at all... :(

mx+3x+my+3y/m^2-3m-18

Answer 1

are those quantities like (mx+3x+my+3y) / (m^2-3m-18)

Answer 2

yeah sorry...

Answer 3

ok so what are you solving for?

Answer 4

It just says simplify...

Answer 5

oh ok...

if you look at the denominator you see that m^2 - 3m - 18 factors pretty nicely into (m-6)(m+3)
and if you look at the numerator...its a little tricky to see if you aren't used to factoring but you can group them and then factor so you have
mx+3x+my+3y
so collect some terms that are similar in the first two and the last two
x(m+3) + y(m+3)
and then since both contain the common factor (m+3) you can group the x and y
so you get
(x+y)(m+3) / (m-6)(m+3)
the (m+3) cancels

you end up with
(x+y)/(m-6)

if you are stuck on the factoring, trying FOIL-ing (x+y)(m+3) you will get the exact same thing that we started out with

Answer 6

Thank you so much!

Answer 7

no problem