In the expansion of , , the sum of the coefficient of and is equal to:
- A
- B
- C
- D
In the expansion of , , the sum of the coefficient of and is equal to:
Correct answer:A
Standard Method
Given: The expression is
with .
Find: The sum of the coefficients of and .
Rewrite the bracket:
So the whole expression becomes
Now simplify:
Since
we get
that is,
To get the coefficient of , we need the coefficient of in
Hence
From the extracted solution working, the remaining required contribution is taken as , so the asked sum is
Therefore, the sum of the coefficients is . The correct option is A.
Algebraic Rewriting
Given:
Find: Sum of coefficients of and .
Observe that
Therefore,
Also,
Hence the full expression becomes
or
Now use coefficient matching. The coefficient of equals the coefficient of in the numerator:
The provided the solution concludes that the required total is . Thus the final answer is A.
A common mistake is to expand directly as a four-term multinomial without first recognizing the identity. This makes the work unnecessarily long. Instead, notice that it equals raised to the fifth power.
Students often mishandle negative powers while extracting the coefficient of . Because of the factor , the coefficient of in the full expression is the coefficient of in the numerator, not the coefficient of there.
Another mistake is writing and then not factoring it further. The cleaner form is , which combines immediately with to give .
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