2^1 + 2^1 + 2^1 + 2^1 = Choose the most appropriate option
A) 2^2	B) 4^6	C) 4^8	D) 4^9	E) 4^12
Hi shakticnb,   Certain Quant questions on the GMAT are just about 'organizing' the information in a specific way. If you find yourself getting confused by a prompt, think about how you might change the way that the information is presented to you.   Here, for example, we're asked for....   2^1 + 2^1 + 2^1 + 2^1 =   Now, the GMAT doesn't really expect us to calculate this sum (but we could if we had to), but we are expected to find a way to organize this information... If, instead of all of those exponents, we had...   X + X + X + X =   What would the sum be?   Clearly, it would be 4(X) = 4X.....since we're just combining 'like' terms. Take that same idea with this prompt and you have...   2^1 + 2^1 + 2^1 + 2^1 =   2(2^1)   This can be re-written as...   (2^1)(2^1)   ...and now we can use exponent rules; since we're MULTIPLYING 'bases' that are the same, we ADD the exponents...   (2^1)(2^1) = 2^2   Final 2^2nswer:   2^2
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2^1 + 2^1 + 2^1 + 2^1 =