What you’ll learn to do: Evaluate and simplify rational expressions

A pastry shop has fixed costs of [latex]\$280[/latex] per week and variable costs of [latex]\$9[/latex] per box of pastries. The shop’s costs per week in terms of [latex]x[/latex], the number of boxes made, is [latex]280+9x[/latex]. We can divide the costs per week by the number of boxes made to determine the cost per box of pastries.

[latex]\Large{\frac{280+9x}{x}}[/latex]

Notice that the result is a polynomial expression divided by a second polynomial expression. In this section, we will explore quotients of polynomial expressions.