I can't make heads or tails out of most of your mess. Use lots of parentheses and a forward slash to indicate the vinculum next time. And either capitalize all of your variables or don't capitalize any of them. X and x are two different things.
Also, one problem per post.
Factor a 2 out of the numerator:
Factor the difference of two squares in the numerator:
Factor the denominator: (Hint: you should expect at least one of your numerator factors to show up in the denominator, otherwise the original fraction is irreduceable)
Try . That would mean that the first term of the other factor would have to be , the second term would have to be and because the first factor has a plus sign, and the term sign is negative, the second factor must have a minus sign.
So do FOIL on to see if it equals . If it works you are done and can eliminate the factor from both numerator and denominator. If it doesn't work then you have to try .
John
My calculator said it, I believe it, that settles it
