Question

Can someone explain to me I have a math test tomorrow and I’m kinda confused, thanks!

Answer 1

What you're doing is scientific notation, I had a test over this not too long ago as well, all you have to is, to increase the exponent move it to the left, to decrease the exponent move it to the right. In this case since the exponent is negative, you move the decimal to the right to get .0114.

Answer 2

Now I'm guessing that you know how to identify positive exponents. And I'm guessing you are struggling with identifying negative exponents.

Well, when you identify a negative exponent you are basically moving the decimal point backwards.

For example:

$10^{-1}$ is 1.0 instead of 10. You see how I moved the decimal point backwards once.

Well, with $10^{-2}$ you would move the decimal point backwards twice giving you the answer 0.01. And then of course you would multiply 1.14 and 0.01, which would give you 0.0114.

If you need more help, I suggest you watch the video "negative exponents" on Khan Academy!