Question

Describe and correct the error in solving the following rational equation , plz help!!!!!

Answer 1

First of all, x cannot ever equal -1 because if it does then in the original equation you'd be dividing by 0, which is not possible. anything divided by 0 is undefined.

I think the error was in the second step: x(x+1) = 2(x+1) because they didn't need to go from the first step to there. I'm assuming they multiplied both sides of the equation with (x+1) to get rid of the fraction, but since both sides have (x+1) as the denominator the (x+1) would've cancelled out instead of multiplying with the numerator.

Correction:

`(x)/(x+1) = (2)/(x+1)\\((x+1)/(1)) ((x)/(x+1)) = ((2)/(x+1))((x+1)/(1)) \\x = 2`

as u can see, in the second step of this correction, the (x+1)s on both sides cancel out so only the numerators remain.

Hope this helps!