Example

Example (cont’d)
Example (cont’d)
Example (cont’d)
 Sketching the Graph of Rational
Fractions
– Guidelines:

– Find and plot y-intercept.

– Find the zeros of the numerator, then plot on x-axis.
– Find the zeros of the denominator, then plot vertical
asymptotes.
– Find and sketch the horizontal asymptotes.
– Plot at least one point between and beyond each x-intercept
and vertical asymptotes.
Example
Example (cont’d)
Example
Example (cont’d)
Example (cont’d)
Example (cont’d)
Example (cont’d)
Example (cont’d)
Example
Example (cont’d)
 Example
• Find all the asymptotes and sketch the graph of
f if
x 9
2
f  x  .
2x  4
• Solution:
– First, we have a vertical asymptote at x = 2 .
– Next, the degree of the numerator is one more than
the degree of the denominator.
 Example (cont’d)
– Thus, the graph has no horizontal asymptote…
– …but it does have an oblique asymptote, which we
can find by long division:
 Example (cont’d)
– So we can write
x 9 1
2
 5
  x  1  .
2x  4  2  2x  4
– This shows that y = (½)x + 1 is an oblique
asymptote.
– The x-intercepts are at x = ±3 .
9
– The y-intercept is f  0  .
4
 Example (cont’d)
• Here is the completed graph of f :
 Quiz 3
• Let f ( x ) = 2 x3 + 3 x2 + 8 x - 5. Use the rational zero
principle and synthetic division to find a rational zero.
Then factor the function. Use the quadratic formula to
find the two complex zeros of the function. This function
has one real zero and two complex zeros.

• Find the smallest positive integer which is an upper

bound on the zeros of the function g ( x ) = - x3 + 3 x2 +
3x-1
 Solution
• The possible rational zeros are ±1, ±5, ±1/2, ±5 / 2.  Applying synthetic
division, we find …….So 1/2 is a zero of the function. We also see that the
function factors as Thus ……, the complex zeros are the zeros of quotient
…... Using the quadratic formula, the other two zeros are ….

• Since the leading coefficient is negative, we’ll never get a row of all positive
numbers.  Since the set of zeros of g ( x ) is the same as the set of zeros of
– g ( x ), we use – g ( x ) instead of g ( x ).
1 is not a upper bound
2 same
3 same
4 is upper bound