How to Find the Product or Quotient With Only Positive Exponents

Finding the Product

• 1

  Identify two exponential variables to be multiplied. For example, we want to find the product of x^3 and x^4.

• 2

  Add the exponents and keep the original variable to find the product of the terms.

  (x^4)(x^3) = x^(3+4) = x^7

• 3

  Realize that any variable without an exponent is assumed to be raised to a power of 1. Also, any variable raised to a power of 0 is equal to 1.

Finding the Quotient

• 4

  Identify two exponential variables to be divided. For example, we want to find the quotient of x^6 and x^2. We write this as (x^6 )/( x^2)

• 5

  Subtract the two exponential values. In our example, the new exponent would be 4.

• 6

  Identify the quotient as the original variable raised to a power equal to the difference between the two exponents.

  (x^6) / (x^2) = x^4