9th grade · Math · Unit 13 of 16
Exponents & Powers
Exponent laws and scientific notation
What your child practices
Evaluating powers, using the product, quotient and power laws, working with powers of products and fractions, and order of operations with exponents.
Texas Essential Knowledge and Skills (TEKS) teks student expectation: A.11(B) · simplifying expressions with the laws of exponents
How we explain it
Children can open this short lesson before they practice.
- Same base, multiply: add the exponents.
- Same base, divide: subtract the exponents.
- A power of a power multiplies the exponents. Anything to the power 0 is 1.
Example: 2³ × 2⁴ = ? The base is the same, so add the exponents: 3 + 4 = 7. 2⁷ = 128. Answer: 2⁷ = 128
Exponents & Powers in Texas
In the Texas Essential Knowledge and Skills (TEKS), this is unit 13 of 16 in 9th grade Math, after Factoring & Quadratics and before Linear or Exponential?.
Gradelings describes a child's practice on this unit as Beginning, Approaching, Meeting or Exceeding (Four practice steps). That reflects practice, not a report-card mark: the teacher decides the mark.
Source: Texas Education Agency (TEA)
Sample questions
A taste of this unit. In the app, questions change every time and get easier or harder to match your child.
Question 1
What is 6²?
answer box
36
Hint: 6² = 6 × 6 = 36.
Question 2
What is (−3)²?
answer box
9
Hint: Multiply −3 by itself 2 times. An even number of negatives gives a positive answer: 9.
Question 3
Simplify: 9⁸ × 9³
- 9¹¹
- 81²⁴
- 9²⁴
- 81¹¹
- 9⁵
9¹¹
Hint: When you multiply powers with the same base, add the exponents: 8 + 3 = 11.
Question 4
Simplify: 5⁷ ÷ 5³
- 5⁴
- 5²
- 1
- 5¹⁰
- 5⁵
5⁴
Hint: When you divide powers with the same base, subtract the exponents: 7 − 3 = 4.
Question 5
Simplify: (2⁴)⁴
- 8⁴
- 2¹⁶
- 2²⁵⁶
- 2⁸
- 2¹⁷
2¹⁶
Hint: For a power of a power, multiply the exponents: 4 × 4 = 16.
Question 6
Simplify: x⁴ · x⁴
- x¹⁶
- 2x⁸
- x⁸
- x¹
- (2x)⁸
x⁸
Hint: Same base, so add the exponents: 4 + 4 = 8.