Verified answer

My teacher showed me to separate like terms when dividing. If you don't know what I mean, it's like this (It would still be the same if you multiplied across, so it wouldn't interfere with the answer of the problem):

42 x^-6 y^9

--- ------ -----

12 x^5 y^12

To start off, 42/12 simplifies to 7/2. So now, it'd look like this:

7 x^-6 y^9

--- ------- ------

2 x^5 y^12

Then, you move onto the x terms. When dividing exponents, you just subtract them. It even applies when there's a negative exponent. You can do x^-6 - x^5 or x^5 - x^-6, but I'll do the first one:

7 x^-11 y^9

-- ------- -------

2 1 y^12

(I put a one there because it's kinda like a placeholder. It still means the same as x^-11 without one.) Now for the y's, you do the same thing:

7 x^-11 y^-3

-- -------- ------

2 1 1

Now, since you can't have negative exponents, you just flop them, but turn the exponent positive as you do so. The answer would now be:

7

----------

2x^11y^3

I hope I helped. (For some reason, Yahoo, likes to realign my numbers. I hope they don't confuse you!)

(7)/(2x^11y^3)

42/12 is reduced to 7/2.

So now you want to move variables around by subtracting the lowest power to the highest power.

In this case, subtract x^-6 to x^5, that'll be x^11. Now do the same with y, it'll be y^3.