Skip to main content
OlympiadHQ

Browse · MATH

Print

jmc

algebra senior

Problem

The graph of has a horizontal asymptote at . What is ?
Solution
To determine the horizontal asymptotes, we consider what happens as becomes very large. It appears that, as becomes very large, the rational function becomes more and more like so it should become closer and closer to .

We can see this explicitly by dividing both the numerator and denominator by . This gives Indeed, as gets larger, all of the terms other than 5 in the numerator and 3 in the denominator become very small, so the horizontal asymptote is .
Final answer
\frac53