What’s the answer

Question

(4x³)^-2

Answer 1

Soooooo, your answer depends on what the teacher wants, so I'll give you two versions.

Remember that a negative exponent means we are flipping things snd making the exponent positive. Since 4x³ is raised to a negative 2...

(4x³)^-2 = 1/(4x³)² = 1/16x⁶

Now, sometimes they don't ask for positive exponents, so we just multiply 3(-2) = -6 and get...

(4x³)^-2 = x^-6/16

Hopefully you can see that x^-6 = 1/x⁶ and that's how we get the first answer.