Question

How do you simplify `-12^-1`?

Answer 1

`-1/12`

Explanation:

The key realization here is that since we have a negative exponent, we can rewrite the expression as

`1/(-12)^1`

Notice, we can take the exponent to the denominator and doing so makes it positive. Now, we simply have

`1/-12`, which we can rewrite as

`-1/12`

Hope this helps!