Question

Simplify [ ( ½)^2 – ( ¼ )^3 ] x 2^3

Answer 1

There's a variety of ways to do this, but for the most part you want to convert every exponent to base 2 so you can apply exponent rules. So putting everything in base 2 and removing the division by using negative exponents, we have:
( (2^-2) - ((2^2)^-3) )*2^3. Now you just multiple the exponents together in the second term, and then foil the 2^3 in and get 2-2^-3 or 2-(1/8)