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Fake exponent rules

Fake exponent rules

From the course: Test Prep: GRE

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Fake exponent rules

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- [Voiceover] In this video I'm going to talk about fake exponent rules. These are exponent rules that some people think are rules but in reality they are not true. So the first one I'll go over is if we have different bases with different exponents multiplied together. Let's say I had x squared times y cubed. That would not be equal to x y to the fifth. You can't add exponents in that situation and just combine the two. Another thing that sometimes people get confused on is what if we had x squared to the third? That would not equal x squared times x cubed. The expression on the right is going to simply to x to the fifth and the expression on the left is going to simplify to x to the sixth. So make sure you don't make that mistake. Another thing people sometimes try to do is if they have something like x plus y squared. They think they can simplify that to x squared plus y squared. Just kind of squaring each variable in there. But in fact you can't do that you have to FOIL. And what…

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