Question 266289


When you have something like:
a^(-2)
To make it a positive exponent you can move it to the denominator:
1/a^2
.
Similarly:
1/a^(-2)
To make it a positive exponent, move it the numerator:
a^2
.
Your problem then:
 (2x^3-2x^2-12x)(x^4-2x^3-8x^2)^-1
can be written as a fraction:
 (2x^3-2x^2-12x)
-----------------
 (x^4-2x^3-8x^2)
.
Now, factoring out what's common:
 2x(x^2-x-6)
-----------------
 x^2(x^2-2x-8)
.
 2x(x-3)(x+2)
-----------------
 x^2(x-4)(x+2)
.
Canceling like-terms, we get:
 2(x-3)
--------
 x(x-4)