How do you graph the rational function f(x)=6/(x^2+x-2)?

1 Answer
Feb 8, 2015

I would factorize the denominator solving the second degree equation to get:
f(x)=6/((x+2)(x-1))
This helps you to "see" the forbidden points, i.e., the points where the denominator becomes zero (you do not want this!!!).
They are:
x=-2
x=1
Excluding these two values of x the other are all allowed.
You can now try to figure out the shape of your graph:
1) for x very big positively or negatively your function gets very small or, better, tends to zero (try to substitute in your function, say, x=1000 or x=-1000 you'll find f(x)~0);
2) getting near to -2 your function gets very big positively (from the left) and negatively (from the right). You can try it by substituting -1.999 (on the right of x=-2) that gives you f(x)~-2000 and (on the left of x=-2) x=-2.001 giving f(x)=2000. This tendency (for f(x) to become very big) is repeated as well when you get near x=1 (try it!);
3) setting x=0 gives you y=-3 which is the y-axis intercept;
At the end your graph looks like:

graph{6/(x^2+x-2) [-10, 10, -5, 5]}

hope it helps