Surds 1: The basic rules- Simplifying surds 

Hello Everyone!  
 
You should all know the basic surd rules from your IGCSE course. We will now review the basics and
explore further. 
 
Read the instruction carefully and follow the steps- Please pay particular attention to how you can
upload your work for each lesson. 
 
What are surds?  Irrational numbers- When we want an exact answer- we use surds. 
Surds can be simplified, expanded and factorised. We also rationalise surds as we always want to
simplify fractions- and to recognise like terms. 
 

Instructions:- Read carefully 

1. Read notes below 
2. Watch video-Only if you need to 
3. Do the simple exercise below-  
4.  To upload- Either 
A) do workings in your notebook and take a picture- upload a picture here, below 
B) Do the workings on the word document and upload here on this page you must Insert an a printout
please 
C) Type in answers below  
Surds 2: Adding and subtracting Surds 
1. Adding and subtracting Surds is very similar to collecting like terms in algebra... 
 
We can think of different surds being different letters--  
 
Ie. You can only add/ subtract "like" terms...  
 
For example: 
Root 5 plus 3Root5 = 4Root5  2√3+5√2−√3+7√2 = √3+12√2
   √54   -  4√6   +  √150     = √9x6 - 4√6 + √25x6 
                                                 = 3√6  - 4√6  +5√6 
                                                      = 4√6 
You may need to simplify first before  you add and subtract "like" surds 
 https://corbettmaths.com/2013/05/11/surds-addition/