New Maths GCSE 9-1 Sample Question Confused?!

Yes, at GCSE you are required to solve quadratics, but not for this particular question.

Since OP already has the answer spoilt for him, here it is:

$\frac{x-1}{4x}+\frac{x+2}{3x}=5$

$\rightarrow \frac{x-1}{4}+\frac{x+2}{3}=5x$

$\rightarrow 3(x-1)+4(x+2)=5x \cdot 12$

and solve it from there without much fuss of a quadratic.


IF we are going with a quadratic like your's and get to the stage of $53x^2-5x=0$ we can simply divide by x and get $53x-5=0$.

Before anyone jumps and says that we cannot divide by x, well we can. Only because in this particular scenario $x\not= 0$ otherwise the original equation wouldn't make sense due to division by 0.

Ah, okay. Now i'm regretting losing all of that time at my GCSE Exam, but of course I did the easier old spec. This new 9-1 spec is going to be much tougher (though much more exciting)

Thanks for your reply

So basically in any questions like this I can just move the x in the denominator to the other side?

you're not "moving" anything around. You're multiplying both sides of the equation by x which causes the x's on the denominators to cancel.

$\frac{x-1}{4x}+\frac{x+2}{3x}=5$

$x( \frac{x-1}{4x}+\frac{x+2}{3x} )=5x$

$\frac{x(x-1)}{4x}+\frac{x(x+2)}{3x}=5x$

$\frac{x-1}{4}+\frac{x+2}{3}=5x$